Water treatment stations attacked by RSF can no longer provide clean water in Khartoum state, which reported 90 percent of the cases.
Sudan’s Ministry of Health has reported a spike in cholera cases in the war-torn country, with 2,700 infections and 172 deaths in the past week.
In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said 90 percent of cases were reported in Khartoum state, where water and electricity supply have been severely disrupted in recent weeks by drone strikes blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the army since April 2023.
Cases were also reported in the south, centre and north of the country.
Cholera is endemic to Sudan, but outbreaks have become far worse and more frequent since the war broke out, wrecking already fragile water and sanitation and health infrastructure.
Last Tuesday, the ministry said 51 people had died of cholera out of more than 2,300 reported cases over the past three weeks, 90 percent of them in Khartoum state.
The RSF this month launched drone strikes across Khartoum, including on three power stations, before being completely pushed out of their last holdout positions in the capital last week.
Water treatment stations out of service
The strikes knocked the electricity – and subsequently the local water network – out of service, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), forcing residents to turn to unsafe water sources.
“Water treatment stations no longer have electricity and cannot provide clean water from the Nile,” Slaymen Ammar, MSF’s medical coordinator in Khartoum, said in a statement.
Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal illness caused by ingesting contaminated water or food, can kill within hours if untreated. Yet, it is easily preventable and treatable when clean water, sanitation and timely medical care are available.
Sudan’s already fragile healthcare system has been pushed to the “breaking point” by the war, according to the World Health Organization.
Up to 90 percent of the country’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.
The war, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.