Gaza Burns Cases Surge as Medical Supplies Dwindle

Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
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Gaza Burns Cases Surge as Medical Supplies Dwindle

Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File

In Gaza City's Al-Ahli Hospital, five-year-old Amir Habib al-Habeel screams out in pain from the burns he suffered from an Israeli air strike on his home in Shujaiya a fortnight earlier.
He occupies a bed far from his mother, who also suffered burns, and who cannot move to be by her son's side.

Instead, her brother cares for him, the only available guardian after his "father was martyred", as the tearful child says, struggling to remove one of many IV tubes.

"We receive daily cases of second- and third-degree burns as a result of rocket attacks and the use of internationally banned weapons by the Israeli army," Amjad Eleiwa, an emergency doctor at the hospital, told AFP.

"Most of the cases that come to us are children and women. We don't have any capacity to deal with these burns," he said, explaining that they could not access any of the medical supplies needed to treat burns and had to resort instead to whatever was available in private warehouses and pharmacies.

"We are in dire need of medical and logistical support and medicine to deal with these cases and save them."ch
Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning".
Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims.

Julie Faucon, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told AFP some of the charity's specialists have been working for two months in Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, "supporting what we call the trauma auto burn unit".

In that time, they have received "more than 69 cases with burns. One case out of five is related to explosions", the burns specialist said.

"Three out of four" of the patients they have received are children, she said, adding that 10 of the patients have had burns on more than 20 percent of their bodies.

According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning".

Mughayyir said the weapons reach extremely high temperatures and are "capable of melting bodies".

They often target "tent areas made up of nylon containing primitive materials such as wood and plastic, all of which directly affects the speed and rate of ignition", he added.

"These burns have a direct impact on people's lives and appearances. They affect skin layers and burn nerves, and there are people who become disabled as a result of that."

- No medical supplies

Access to treatment abroad has been blocked as most Palestinians cannot leave the besieged Gaza Strip
The World Health Organization has said that out of 36 hospitals in the territory, only 15 are partially functional, adding that medical facilities have been targeted more than 1,000 times since war broke out on October 7.

Mohammed Zaqout, the head of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, said "there is only Nasser Hospital in the southern areas, with 12 operating rooms, all of which are overcrowded".

"There are 16 beds in the intensive care units, all of which are occupied, and we have added a capacity of 24 beds but they are now full," he said.

"We try to distribute these cases to field hospitals, but the occupation's massacres against unarmed civilians occur on a daily and hourly basis, and no one in the world intervenes."

Access to treatment abroad has been blocked as most Palestinians cannot leave the besieged territory, as has the entry of most medical supplies, particularly since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt since early May.

Faucon similarly highlighted the urgent need for medical supplies, pointing to surging demand among extremely meagre stocks.



Sudan's Famine-stricken Zamzam Camp Hit by Devastating Floods

A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Sudan's Famine-stricken Zamzam Camp Hit by Devastating Floods

A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

A famine-stricken camp in Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region is facing a "significant" new influx of displaced people while floods threaten to contaminate water and sanitation facilities, according to satellite imagery published on Friday.

The findings from Yale Humanitarian Research Lab show that toilets and nine out of 13 water points have been inundated at the Zamzam camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in North Darfur, raising the risk of cholera and other diseases in an area already facing extreme levels of malnutrition.

The camp, hosting about 500,000 people, has become more crowded as people have fled recent fighting between Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which broke out in April 2023.

The images analyzed by the Yale researchers show brown floodwaters submerging outdoor toilets and areas where people queue for water.

"We need water, food, healthcare, and for God to lift this curse from Sudan, nothing more than that," said Duria Abdelrahman, who told Reuters she had received no aid since arriving in the camp. Women were seen cleaning leaves to eat.

Zamzam is the largest IDP camp in Sudan, and some people have lived there for more than two decades.

On Thursday, the world’s global hunger monitor determined that Zamzam is experiencing famine, only the third such assessment since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an international food security standard, was established two decades ago

“For humanitarians, our worst-case scenario, what we train for as the sum of all fears, is happening on the ground right now,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.

“A population already vulnerable due to being food and water deprived, on the move and under siege, now is surrounded by floodwaters that are contaminated with human and animal faeces.”

Zamzam is near al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur and the only significant holdout from the RSF across Darfur. At least 65 people were killed this week as the group besieges the city.

The main hospital is out of service after an RSF attack.

- DIRTY WATER

Zamzam and other areas where more than 300,000 people have fled are controlled by armed groups that are neutral or allied with the government and therefore offer some protection. But they have little food and few services because the army and RSF have prevented assistance from entering.

Residents say they cannot reach farms as RSF soldiers surround the area, while most have no money for the little food that enters markets. The IPC said the Abu Shouk and al-Salam camps in al-Fashir are likely facing similar conditions to Zamzam.

Residents have limited access to fresh water, the Yale researchers said.

“The water is unsafe because it mixes with all the dirt,” Zamzam resident Yahia Ali told Reuters, pointing to brown rainwater collected in a tarp. “And even though it’s dirty we are forced to drink it.”

The Yale researchers used satellite imagery to identify enough standing water at the camp to cover at least 125 soccer pitches. The researchers also documented submerged toilets at Al Salam School 36 for Adolescents and another school compound.

A Reuters eyewitness said newcomers from al-Fashir sheltering in a roofless school had water up to their knees.

In al-Fashir, the Yale researchers documented flooding of hospitals, food and water distribution sites, and markets. The Mawashi Market, where livestock is slaughtered and sold, was also inundated and the researchers called it “a particularly concerning vehicle of contamination”.

As of early July, Sudan had 11,000 cholera cases nationwide, according to the health ministry, although none had been recorded in North Darfur.

Waterborne disease outbreaks occurred in Darfur during a devastating conflict that began in 2003.

Zamzam is one of 14 locations across Sudan where the IPC has said famine is likely, most of them other displacement camps that have seen little aid enter since the latest war began.

“This is not just the situation in Zamzam, but the condition of all the other camps in Darfur, more than 171 camps suffering the same conditions,” said Adam Rojal, spokesman for the Displacement Camps Coordinating Committee, an activist network.