Cholera outbreak kills 172 in war-torn Sudan

Thousands of cases reported in the past week

Khartoum residents fill jerrycans with water amid water and power outages in the devastated capital region. AP

At least 172 people have died in a cholera outbreak sweeping war-torn Sudan, with most new cases in the greater capital region.

The war-torn country's Health Ministry said cholera cases have risen to 2,729 in seven days and affect people in six of Sudan's 18 states. Ninety per cent of new cases have been reported in the capital's greater region of three Nile-side cities: Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri.

Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal illness caused by ingesting contaminated water or food, can kill within hours if untreated. It is easily preventable and treatable when clean water, sanitation and timely medical care are available.

The epidemic has hit Sudan at a time when the nation of 50 million is in the grip of a devastating two-year-old civil war between the armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudan's healthcare sector has been hit hard by the war in the capital's three cities, which were held by the RSF until March when the army took them back after fierce fighting over several months.

Besides crippling Sudan's infrastructure, including healthcare facilities, the war has killed tens of thousands, displaced about 13 million and left about 26 million people facing acute hunger, with pockets of famine surfacing across much of the vast and impoverished nation. Last Tuesday, the ministry said 51 people had died of cholera out of more than 2,300 reported cases over the previous three weeks, 90 per cent of them in Khartoum state.

Drone attack

The latest death toll from cholera also coincided with reports that an RSF drone had hit a fuel depot in the southern city of Kosti in White Nile state. Tuesday's attack was the latest in a string of devastating hits by RSF drones on strategic facilities in Port Sudan, the army's wartime capital on the Red Sea.

Those hit included major fuel depots, the international airport, military bases and power transformers. Eyewitnesses in Kosti reported hearing explosions and seeing columns of thick smoke rise over the city soon after the drone hit.

Earlier this month, the RSF launched drone strikes across Khartoum, including three power stations, triggering a massive blackout that disrupted electricity and water services and arguably contributed to the cholera outbreak. Cholera is endemic in Sudan, but outbreaks have become worse and more frequent since the war broke out in April 2023, when months of tension and political wrangling between the army and the RSF turned violent.

With electricity supply and subsequently the local water network out of service, residents have been forced to turn to unsafe water sources, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF). "Water treatment stations no longer have electricity and cannot provide clean water from the Nile," Slaymen Ammar, MSF's medical co-ordinator in Khartoum, said in a statement.

In Omdurman, residents say they have had no power for nearly two weeks. "We now fetch water directly from the Nile, buying it from donkey carts that bring it in barrels," resident Bashir Mohammed said.

According to a doctor at Omdurman's Al Nao Hospital, the capital's main functioning health facility, residents have resorted to "drinking untreated Nile water, after the shutdown of water pumping stations." Up to 90 per cent of Sudan's hospitals have at some point been forced to close because of the fighting, according to the doctors' union, with health facilities regularly stormed, bombed and looted.

Al Shafie Ahmed reported from Kampala, Uganda with AFP reporting.