Measles kills 70 in East Darfur’s Labado in a few weeks as healthcare collapse leaves families without medicines.

Hawa Adam did not expect a childhood illness to kill her son. Ali was two years old when he fell sick on February 25 in Labado, in Sudan’s East Darfur state. He died two days later.

“I thought it was one of the ordinary childhood diseases,” the 37-year-old told Al Jazeera. “I never imagined I would lose my child to this epidemic.”

Hawa attributes his death to the absence of basic medical care – no vaccination, no qualified doctors.

“Most doctors”, she says, “left the area after the war broke out, forcing those with means to seek treatment abroad, in South Sudan or Uganda.”

A measles outbreak has struck several Labado districts since March, killing approximately 70 people and infecting about 1,000 others across 12 residential neighbourhoods, in a population of roughly 12,000, which includes displaced people who arrived during the war, according to Mohamed Abdel Aziz, 32, coordinator of the Labado crisis unit, a community-run group.