Young Girl at Entrance of Camp

During the dry season, the wind relentlessly envelops the refugee camp in heat and sand, depositing a layer of thick brown dust on all of the tents. In the midst of this unforgiving environment, there is widespread malnutrition and dehydration, respiratory and other infectious diseases, as well as the emotional trauma of being displaced people and survivors of war. The laughter of children, however, brings a glimmer of hope.

Five-month-old Saloua was malnourished and seriously dehydrated when he arrived at the camp’s healthcare center with his mother. He was quickly given a special sugar and salt solution and within minutes his condition had visibly improved. Within the next few days, he will be kept at the MSF feeding center where he will be given a high-protein food supplement and will undergo regular examinations. Extremely weak children like Saloua are susceptible to infections of the respiratory tract, diarrhea, and malaria.

  Feeding Centre

Trauma Consultation

This woman lost her husband and two brothers when militia attacked her village in Sudan. She was severely injured by a bullet in the face. Now she lives in the camp with her five children and two of her brother’s children. With the help of an interpreter, Lina Gustin, an MSF nurse, listens carefully to her story. Many people in the camp are suffering from experiences of violence and loss. MSF therefore plans to set up a program for psychosocial rehabilitation.

The people in the camp receive medical aid in the healthcare center. Remko Schats, an MSF doctor from Holland, examines eighteen-year-old Djouma. Schats suspects his young patient is carrying hepatitis E. The virus that causes this rare form of hepatitis is spread through contaminated food or drinking water. There is no effective way of treating the disease with medication. Only its symptoms can be treated. In the case of pregnant women, hepatitis E can lead to life-threatening complications.

Hepatitis

Vaccinations

Places where people are crowded together with little space and in poor sanitary conditions are the perfect breeding ground for fast-spreading infections. The children in the camps are therefore given measles vaccines. Without the protection offered by this vaccination, measles could pose one of the biggest threats to their health.

Health education is one of the strategies that MSF uses to prevent the spread of disease within the camp. MSF volunteers have organized theatre performances that concentrate on a range of health issues including hygiene, antenatal care, and effective protection against malaria. The woman on the left is playing the role of a mosquito that transmits this dangerous tropical disease.

Outdoor Theatre: Health Education

Preparing for Cholera during Rainy Season

The rainy season begins in late May which means that torrential downpours will flood the camp with dirty surface water, increasing the risk of diarrhea and cholera. The MSF teams have already started building an isolation ward outside the camp so that a potential cholera outbreak could be quickly brought under control.

There are nearly 16,000 people living in overcrowded conditions in this parched wasteland. It is the women who attend to the daily chores. This primarily consists of looking after the children, cooking, and collecting water. For this, they have to stand in line for hours before being able to fill their canisters and buckets with the meager water rations. By the end of the dry season, water supplies have diminished to just half of what each person needs. Food supplies are also limited. Approximately 200,000 refugees continue to wait in eastern Chad until they can at last return to their homes.

The Forchana Refugee Camp from a Distance