2023-04-21 15:37:29
The clashes in Sudan, which broke out on April 15, exacerbated the health situation in the country. The supplies to the hospitals, which were not provided by the shelling and shooting, and whose medical staff had been stuck in them for days, were exhausted.
The tragic situation can be sought from and accounts obtained by Al-Hurra website regarding deaths due to the inability of an ambulance to arrive for a long time, and corpses were buried in their place due to their decomposition and the inability to transport them due to shelling and gunfire.
This is in addition to the conditions described as “catastrophic” in hospitals in Sudan, where electricity, water and medicines were cut off, and the treatment course for their patients was interrupted, and doctors were unable to reach them.
Movement is paralyzed
Dr. Aladdin Naqd, a member of the Committee of Consultants and Specialists and a member of the Sudanese Doctors Committee, explained in an interview with Al-Hurra that “the war paralyzed movement on the roads and access to hospitals was cut off. Doctors inside health centers cannot go out, nor those in their homes who can meet their patients and the wounded in hospitals.” “.
The Sudanese Minister of Health reveals to Al-Hurra the impact of the battles on the medical sector
Sudanese Minister of Health, Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, said that the death toll from the clashes between the army forces and the Rapid Support Forces reached nearly 60 people, on Friday, at a time when there were conflicting reports regarding the total number of victims since the outbreak of the conflict last week.
He recounted that what increases the suffering is that medical supplies, such as equipment, medicines and supplies, have been cut off from reaching hospitals, and the same applies to the fuel needed for operation, and some hospitals have been cut off from their supply of electricity and water.
And Naqd continued his speech, saying: As if all of this was not enough, the air forces bombed some hospitals by mistake because they were near some military targets, so I evacuated the patients and medical staff. Some hospitals following the evacuation were bombed once more.
He explained that the bombing reached the wards and water and oxygen tanks, and said: “The hospital where I work was bombed, where the nurses live, and it was completely burned.”
He said that in front of this reality, the fleeing patients resorted to other hospitals, and some of them went to his home.
A very big disaster
Naqd stressed that hospitals in Sudan cannot accommodate these numbers of injured and dead, because the bombing is continuous and gunfire is raging in the streets, in addition to the fact that the number of patients is very large.
He explained that at the same time, the dead and body parts are scattered on the roads, and neither families nor associations can reach them, and some families cannot bury the dead.
He said that days following the outbreak of the clashes, the corpses began to decompose in the streets, so the country is facing a very big health disaster in the event that the repercussions are not remedied.
He recounted that the humanitarian situations we are witnessing in Sudan are very harsh, and one of the difficult examples that I learned of is that a group of students at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Khartoum are stuck because of the clashes, because the violence broke out on April 15 in the morning and it was a normal working day in the country, and one of them (K.A.) was injured. He died because an ambulance might not reach him, and his colleagues were unable to leave and take him to the hospital.
Naqd continued that following his death, they called his family to obtain permission to bury him in the university’s courtyard because his body was decomposing, and they buried him in the western field of the University of Khartoum, which is a football stadium, and this is an example of the tragedy, so “they might not even reach the cemetery to bury him!”
“The collapse of the health system in Sudan”
As for health cases in hospitals that need external supplies or to travel abroad for treatment, Naqd indicated that the supplies have stopped and there is no way now to continue them, in addition to the bombing of the airport and its fuel depots, which imprisoned patients in the country.
“In principle, there is no possibility of securing an ambulance for the wounded, so what regarding travel insurance for the sick?” Naqd added.
According to him, medical supplies have stopped arriving from companies to hospitals, “We appealed to international organizations, Doctors Without Borders, the World Health Organization and others to provide us with what is available in their stores, but their exit and access to us is very difficult due to shelling, gunfire and bullets.”
He recounted that he is a surgeon and has not been able to reach the hospital since the first day of the outbreak of the clashes, despite his repeated attempts, saying, “I know that many patients need me.”
He explained that the health crisis is managed independently of the official Ministry of Health, and we disagree with it in terms of the death toll. We affirm, contrary to what she said, that the health system has collapsed in Sudan, and hospitals are not able to respond.
And she already said Doctors without Borders Organization On April 18 that since Saturday, April 15, fierce battles have been taking place between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum and other areas of Sudan, and many people are currently under siege, including health care workers. The situation is difficult in places where we can provide health care. In the past 48 hours, MSF has received a total of 136 wounded people in the hospital it supports in El Fasher, North Darfur, and 11 people have died of their wounds, (at the time).
In this regard, the coordinator of MSF projects in El Fasher, Cyrus Bay, said at the time that “the majority of the wounded are civilians who were in the crossfire, including many children, who were seriously injured and there was no capacity to perform surgeries in this hospital.” Until Saturday followingnoon.
All other hospitals in North Darfur had to close, either because of their proximity to the fighting or because staff were unable to access the facilities due to the ongoing violence, meaning we had nowhere to refer patients for treatment.”
“Sudanese community initiatives are strong”
Naqd explained that medical associations, humanitarian organizations and medical unions contribute to remedying the crisis.
He said, “We have taken a number of steps, such as:
- Merge doctors into a group on social media.
- Organizing 3 emergency rooms in Omdurman, Khartoum and Bahri.
- Supplying needs through some alleys to hospitals.
- Launching an appeal for doctors to reach the hospitals in need, although they are often unable to reach to receive the place of other teams.
He explained that “the medical personnel currently in Sudan are 115, and they have been exhausted due to the long time.”
He pointed out that “there are some initiatives by doctors who provided their data so that patients with chronic diseases can communicate with them to obtain consultations, and committees such as the gastroenterology associations and the associations of children, women, obstetrics and oncology were formed, and pharmacists’ groups were also formed.”
“It is well known that Sudanese society is stronger than the state,” he concluded.
A call for a truce
It is noteworthy that the United Nations called, on Thursday, for a truce in Sudan “for at least 3 days” on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, to allow an outlet for the Sudanese suffering under the weight of intense battles between the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, following a virtual meeting with officials from the African Union, the League of Arab States and other regional organizations, called on the two fighting parties in Sudan to abide by a truce “for at least 3 days” on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, which the Sudanese celebrate on Friday.
On Thursday evening, the Sudanese Fiqh Academy announced that “Friday is the first day of Eid al-Fitr.”
And the World Health Organization announced that regarding 413 people have been killed in Sudan and 3,551 others have been injured since the outbreak of armed confrontations.
In Khartoum, a city of more than five million people, families rush out onto the roads to escape air strikes, gunfire and street battles.
“The smell of death and corpses hangs over some neighborhoods in the center of the capital,” said one of the displaced who fled the capital in search of a safer place.
Dozens of kilometers from the capital, life goes on as normal and houses open to receive the displaced who arrive in shock, in their cars or on foot for hours, with the price of petrol rising to ten dollars per liter in one of the poorest countries in the world, according to AFP.
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