Violence in Sudan continues – Doctors Without Borders sends emergency teams

Violence in Sudan continues. And so on Thursday evening, despite a ceasefire, fighting broke out again in parts of the country.

In the capital Khartoum, the situation for citizens is getting worse: people lack water and food. If they venture out of their homes, they risk dying in the crossfire. The fighters don’t even bother the child protection facilities: on Wednesday, the aid organization SOS Children’s Villages announced that their facility had also been attacked by gunmen. And even prisoners were released by prison staff because their care could no longer be guaranteed.

The situation in hospitals and medical facilities is also precarious: “Health facilities are running out of stock and staff are unable to come to work,” MSF wrote to Watson when asked. Some hospitals were looted. People have broken bones, gunshot wounds or shrapnel in their legs, abdomen or chest. Many need blood transfusions, MSF said.

To guarantee this assistance, MSF had already converted a maternity hospital in El Fasher (North Darfur) into a hospital at the start of the conflict – “the only functioning health facility in the city”. But even there, people succumb to their injuries.

Given the ongoing violence in Sudan, the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) plans to expand aid in the East African country. MSF told Watson that several hundred MSF staff are currently working in Sudan. But now support is available in the form of emergency teams to travel to the disputed country in the Horn of Africa, the organization said. They are in close contact with hospitals and the Sudanese health authorities.

At least 460 people have been killed and nearly 4,100 injured in the fighting, which began nearly two weeks ago, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The actual number of victims is probably considerably higher.

In Sudan, de facto president Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is fighting his deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo with the help of the military. He is the leader of the influential paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The two generals had taken over the leadership of the country of about 46 million inhabitants through two joint military coups in 2019 and 2021.

Sudan’s longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) under an arrest warrant, who was jointly overthrown by the army and RSF in 2019, is reportedly staying at a military hospital in Khartoum and under guard by the police, the army said. The message could not be independently verified. The 79-year-old, who ruled Sudan authoritarianly for 30 years, was actually in Kobar prison in the capital.

(yam/sda/dpa)