Kassala – Sudan, Italy’s contribution to the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS)

With the aim of improving the living conditions of the residents and refugees in Eastern Sudan, the Italian Government, through the Italian Development Cooperation Agency, will contribute to implement a new project of UNOPS – the United Nations Office for Project Services – in Kassala State. The funds, amounting to 500,000 euros, will be allocated to a 15-month long initiative aimed at improving primary mother and child care and to assure a continuing water supply to the town of Khashm el-Girba. “Cooperation is an investment for the future and we are evidently working to improve the living conditions of refugees, but we also want to witness their professional and personal integration in Sudan in the near future, as they are an important asset for the whole Country’s wellbeing. Much has already been done in this sense but we have committed to do even more,” said Italian Ambassador in Sudan, Fabrizio Lobasso. The rural hospital in Khashm el-Girba serves both residents and refugees and it is the only maternity ward in the area. Thanks to the Italian funding, UNOPS will be able to build a new maternity ward offering primary care to 50,000 mothers and children less than 5 years of age. In the refugee camp of Khashm el-Girba, on the border with Eritrea, which houses approximately 10,000 people, UNOPS plans to rehabilitate and enlarge the waste water treatment plant to assure continuous access to water to the camp’s refugees and to local communities. The project, whose implementation is due to begin on 1 June, will be monitored in close coordination with the Sudanese Government’s Committee for Refugees (COR) and the departments of the Ministry of Health of Kassala State.