Woman starts Covid-19 awareness campaign in West Darfur camps

A woman activist is currently touring the camps for the displaced to spread awareness about the coronavirus pandemic.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga’s Kandaka programme to be broadcast today, activist Maryam Hussein said she visited 10 camps so far, despite the violence and insecurity facing women in the camps. “I managed to convince many displaced people to stay at home, even though the majority of the camps’ residents depend on a day-to day income.”

Hussein, head of the West Darfur Network for the Protection of Displaced Women, uses a loudspeaker mounted on a donkey cart for her awareness campaign.

The idea of touring the camps to advise the displaced about how to avoid being infected came “because many people in the camps do not have mobile phones or access to the internet, and the government's lack of interest in what is going on in the camps”.

She emphasised that the camps are free of coronavirus cases so far, “only because of the displaced people’s commitment to the health guidelines”.

The camps in West Darfur are lacking health centres, medicines, and protection equipment against Covid-19, the activist said. “The West Darfur government is not interested in the people in the camps nor is it one of its priorities, even though most of the camps are located near the state government’s offices” in El Geneina.

Hussein pointed in this regard to displaced families living in Kerending camp. “Some of them are still living in the open without a shelter.”

She called on the authorities to provide aid to the people in the camps for the displaced in Darfur to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the latest Federal Ministry of Health report on Sunday about the spread of Covid-19 in Sudan, 30 coronavirus cases have been recorded in West Darfur.

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