Nurse Ndoungamandji Solange, examines a child in Massakori, Chad

Chad

Since 2015, thousands of people in the Lake Chad region have been forced to flee their homes as a result of violent clashes between armed groups and Chadian military forces.

Our teams provide medical care and assistance to displaced people and local communities, who often struggle with a lack of food, in the east and the south of the country.

We work to prevent or help mitigate the seasonal peaks of malnutrition and malaria among children, including across the Sahel region in Adre, on the border with Sudan, which is an area marked by violence and displacement.

We also improve healthcare for women and children, and work on preventing and responding to measles outbreaks.

An emergency response unit (CERU) in southern Chad is capable of delivering medical care in under 72 hours. The CERU responds to emergencies including measles outbreaks, influxes of refugees fleeing the Central African Republic, and intercommunal clashes.

Our Activities in Chad in 2024

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2024.

Where we worked In 2024, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expanded activities to assist some of the more than 700,000 refugees and returnees in eastern Chad, who had fled the horrific violence of the war in Sudan.
MSF activities in Chad 2024

402.9M

402.9M

litres of chlorinated water distributed

601,400

601,4

outpatient consultations

67,500

67,5

vaccinations against measles in response to an outbreak

42,499

42,499

admissions of children to outpatient feeding programmes

Responding to the Sudan crisis

In response to the dire needs of refugees and returnees, MSF – as one of the main organisations in the camps – massively scaled up our medical humanitarian activities. We ran health and sanitation projects in Ouaddaï, Sila, and Wadi Fira in eastern Chad, striving to meet the immediate, and growing, needs of both displaced people and local communities. We have been providing basic, specialist, and community healthcare in the transit camp of Adré, and in the refugee camps of Aboutengue, Metché, and Iriba, and in Kimiti province, further south.

MSF has built field hospitals in Metché and Aboutengue camps, running a wide range of services, including emergency, paediatric, neonatal, and sexual and reproductive care, as well as an operating theatre for emergency surgery in Metché. At Adré hospital, we handed over our surgical programme in 2024 to the Ministry of Health, while we continued to support the paediatric, nutrition, and maternity wards. In Iriba, MSF supported the Ministry of Health at the district hospital and ran a clinic in Touloum camp, as well as a clinic at the Daguessa site and mobile clinics in Goz-Aschiye, Goz Saffra, and Andressa, in Wadi Fira. MSF also ran a health post in Tine transit camp, in Wadi Fira.

MSF activities aimed to strengthen paediatric care in all our projects, in particular the treatment of acute malnutrition and seasonal malaria, through screening and treatment of patients in inpatient and outpatient therapeutic feeding centres. We provided sexual and reproductive health services, mental health support, and care for victims and survivors of sexual violence in Adré, Iriba, and Metché.

We carried out extensive work to improve the drinking water supply in villages and refugee camps by constructing boreholes, latrines, and showers, and distributing water.

 

Regular programmes and other emergency activities

Devastating floods struck all 23 provinces of Chad in 2024, affecting thousands of people and killing more than 500. In collaboration with the Chadian authorities, MSF carried out several emergency responses to meet the immediate needs of affected communities, who were facing severe shortages of food, shelter, drinking water, and healthcare. In Koukou, Sila province, MSF helped local authorities rescue survivors, and provided an emergency healthcare, and water, sanitation, and hygiene response to reduce the risk of outbreaks.

To address low vaccination coverage, MSF supported numerous emergency and routine campaigns across the country. In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, we vaccinated children and adults against measles in the regions of Salamat and Moyen-Chari, and supported catch-up vaccinations throughout the country. To tackle a resurgence in diphtheria, we launched a mass vaccination campaign in the Batha region in January. In the Mandoul region, we continued to partner with the Ministry of Health to improve access to paediatric, obstetric, and maternal healthcare in Moissala, as well as services for children, including treatment for malnutrition and malaria. In N’Djamena, MSF also collaborated with the Ministry of Health on a malnutrition project by supporting five outpatient therapeutic feeding centres and a hospital.

In several of our projects in Chad, we are promoting a communal approach to raising awareness about disease prevention. In Sila, we continued developing a community-based healthcare network across 91 villages, focused on screening and case referrals to improve access to care and early treatment. MSF also worked with community health workers in Massokary, Hadjer Lamis province, to treat malaria cases closer to people’s homes.

 
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