IOM, in partnership with UNICEF and WHO, has provided and maintained basic Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) lifesaving services for displaced people affected by the recent heavy rains and flash floods in the most vulnerable states across Sudan.

IOM has carried out campaigns that aim to increase and maintain access to lifesaving waste management and hygiene promotion (personal and environmental) to promote preventive interventions of diseases outbreaks on the aftermath of floods, as accumulated waste and garbage poses health hazards, especially in urban areas with limited waste management capacity.

“Now we know that most of these diseases are linked to being clean and caring about waste. I can now talk to my family, relatives and neighbours and explain hygiene and waste management and the link some of the infectious diseases that we are suffering from,” said one beneficiary, who has been displaced since February 2014.

IOM has also has conducted 105 solid waste collection activities, transporting 7,158 tons of garbage to landfills and final treatment areas.

The campaigns have reached 740,000 beneficiaries in Khartoum (600,000), West Darfur (80,000) and South Darfur (60,000).

The campaigns included 31,709 health promotion house-to-house/shelter-to-shelter visits, during which 17,833 information and education materials and 2,000 hygiene kits were distributed.

IOM constructed and installed 5,014 waste collecting bins/basin in Khartoum and West Darfur, and rehabilitated two tractors and one lorry in West Darfur.

It provided active cleaning associations/commissions at West Darfur with seven cleaning kits (50 reusable garbage bags, 15 flat rakes, 5 wheelbarrows) and to the displacement camps 4,000 hand cleaners, 500 flat rakes and 500 waste collecting tools.

IOM has also trained 103 displaced people from Al Serif and Kalma camps in South Darfur on how to conduct hygiene promotion of minimum standards among their community over a period of four weeks.

The training aims to ensure sustainability of the intervention by ensuring that the information continues to be disseminated among the community and possible new arrivals. The trainees will also be focal points for emergency response.

“We noticed a change in the behaviour of people. Hopefully this will help – as we had been taught – to decrease the high incidence of malaria, scabies, diarrhea and acute jaundice,” says another beneficiary, who took part in the hygiene promotion training.

This project has been supported by the United Nation’s Central Emergency Fund (CERF), in close coordination with UNICEF and WHO.

For more information please contact Diana Cartier at dcartier@iom.int