Menu ENN Search

Patterns of mortality rates in Darfur

Summary of published research1

Several mortality estimates for the Darfur conflict have been reported since 2004, but few accounted for conflict dynamics such as changing displacement and causes of deaths. A recent study analyses changes over time for crude cause - specific mortality rates, and assesses the effect of displacement on mortality rates.

Retrospective mortality surveys were gathered from an online database (CRED2). Quasi-Poisson models were used to assess mortality rates with regard to place and period in which the survey was done, the proportions of displaced people in the samples were the explanatory variable. Predicted mortality rates for five periods were computed and applied to population data taken from the United Nations (UN) series about Darfur to obtain the number of deaths. This series of reports also provided data on humanitarian issues, such as displacement of people and humanitarian aid staff and food supply.

Sixty-three of 107 mortality surveys met all criteria for analysis. The results show significant reductions in mortality rates from early 2004 to the end of 2008, although rates were higher during deployment of fewer humanitarian workers. In general, the reduction in rate was more important for violence-related than for diarrhoea-related mortality. Displacement correlated with increased rates of death associated with diarrhoea, but also with reduction in violent deaths. Estimated excess number of deaths was 298,271 (95% CI 178,258-461,520). More than 80% of excess deaths were not a result of the violence.

Although violence was the main cause of death during 2004, diseases have been the cause of most deaths since 2005, with displaced populations being the most susceptible. However, the effect of displacement is different if mortality rates are split into violence-related and non-violence related mortality. Mortality associated with violence is generally lower in samples with many displaced individuals, but that associated with non-violence is significantly higher. This suggests that internally displaced people are protected from attacks, but overcrowding and precarious situations in which they live increase the risk of death from communicable diseases. Any reduction in humanitarian assistance appeared to lead to worsening mortality rates, as was the case between mid 2006 and mid 2007. During this period, there was an 18% reduction in number of humanitarian aid workers while the number of affected people increased from 3.5 million to 4.2 million.

The authors acknowledge a number of study limitations associated with retrospective mortality surveys, i.e. access to affected populations, survival bias and risk of recall bias. In addition, the CRED database may not have been exhaustive and surveys in the database may not have included all affected populations evenly. In spite of these and other study limitations, the authors conclude that the Darfur conflict shows a typical pattern of mortality rates with time. This was characterised by a peak in the number of violent deaths followed by a protracted phase of increased disease-related mortality rate. This latter phase particularly affects displaced individuals living in conditions of poor sanitary infrastructure, making them susceptible to diseases associated with diarrhoea.

Show footnotes

1Degomme. O and Guha-Sapir. D (2010). Patterns of mortality rates in Darfur. vol 375, January 23, 2010, pp 294-299. www.thelancet.com

2Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. www.cred.be

More like this

FEX: Mortality Rates in Conflict Affected Darfur

Published paper1 Serverly wasted adult male A recent article in the Lancet reported on the findings of a mortality survey in West Darfur, Sudan for the period 2003-4...

FEX: Mortality in the DRC

Summary of published research1 IRC mortality survey team in transit Since 2000, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has documented the humanitarian impact of war and...

FEX: Distribution of WFP food aid in West Darfur

Summary of research1 Receiving WFP food aid in West Darfur In order to investigate the evolution of the humanitarian situation in Darfur, trends in nutritional status and...

FEX: Delivering Supplementary and Therapeutic Feeding in Darfur: coping with Insecurity

By Gwyneth Hogley Cotes, GOAL Gwyneth joined GOAL in November, 2005 as the Nutrition Coordinator for Darfur, Sudan. She has a BA in International Studies and Master of Public...

FEX: People affected by conflict: humanitarian needs and numbers

Summary of report1 Location: Global What we know: Conflict has humanitarian consequences. What this report adds: Analyses of CRED Complex Emergency Database surveys indicate...

FEX: Improved surveillance prevents excess mortality: the Gode experience

Summary of published paper1 A study on the epidemiology of the famine in Gode district of Ethiopia has just been published. The primary objectives of the study (which was...

FEX: Deaths among humanitarian workers

Summary of published paper A group of researchers recently collected information from the records of aid agencies and other organisations on the death of humanitarian aid...

FEX: Blanket BP5 distribution to under fives in North Darfur

By Hanna Mattinen, ACF Since 2005, Hanna Mattinen has been Food Aid Advisor at the Action contre la Faim (ACF) headquarters, focusing on policy and operational issues around...

FEX: Using satellite imagery in conflict-affected areas in Mali to support WFP’s emergency response

View this article as a pdf By Laure Boudinaud, Nanthilde Kamara and Amadou Ibrahim Laure Boudinaud is a geospatial analyst for the World Food Programme (WFP), applying remote...

FEX: Constraints to achieving Sphere minimum standards for SFPs in West Darfur: a comparative analysis

A view of Mornei camp The current conflict in Sudan's westernmost state of Darfur began in early 2003, although most humanitarian agencies only gained access to the area and...

FEX: Breastfeeding in the 21st century: epidemiology, mechanisms, and lifelong effect

Summary of research1 Location: Global What we know: The decision not to breastfeed a child impacts on the health, nutrition and development of a child and on women's...

FEX: WHO response to malnutrition in Syria: a focus on surveillance, case detection and clinical management

By Hala Khudari, Mahmoud Bozo and Elizabeth Hoff Hala Khudari, WHO Technical Officer at WHO Syria, joined WHO in 2011 and is a BSc (Nutrition and Dietetics) and MSc in...

FEX: Review of survey methodology in emergencies

Summary of published research1 Spinning the stick to select clusters during a UNHCR survey in Bangladesh A recent paper set out to identify common methodological errors in...

FEX: Mortality and nutrition surveys by NGOs

Summary of research1 Between 1980 and 2000, the number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) registered within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...

FEX: Evaluation of Dafur Early Warning and Food Information System

North Dafur where SCUK operated until December 2004 Summary of evaluation1 Save the Children UK (SCUK) recently commissioned an evaluation of the Darfur Food Information...

FEX: Selective Feeding in War-Ravaged Northern Uganda

Mothers receiving supplementary ration By: John Moore and Mara Berkley-Mathews John Martin Moore completed training as a Registered General Nurse at National University...

FEX: Livelihoods analysis and identifying appropriate interventions (Special Supplement 3)

3.1 Livelihoods assessment and analysis in emergencies The livelihoods framework provides a tool for analysing people's livelihoods and the impact of specific threats or shocks...

FEX: Aid Continues to Ignore Host Communities

Summary of published paper* In June 1998 fighting between rebels and government forces in Guinea Bissau forced 300,000 inhabitants to flee the capital (Bissau). As many as...

FEX: Interpreting mortality data in emergencies

The Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) have published a network paper on 'interpreting and using mortality data in humanitarian emergencies - a primer for...

FEX: Lessons learned in West Darfur: challenges in assessment methodologies

By Aranka Anema Aranka Anema has a background in medical anthropology. She is currently working with MSF-Holland as Medical Editor and has been involved with the Nutrition...

Close

Reference this page

Patterns of mortality rates in Darfur. Field Exchange 39, September 2010. p11. www.ennonline.net/fex/39/patterns

(ENN_4032)

Close

Download to a citation manager

The below files can be imported into your preferred reference management tool, most tools will allow you to manually import the RIS file. Endnote may required a specific filter file to be used.