2023-04-24 13:43:00
Ibrahim Mohammed found out on Saturday (22) that his neighbor in the hospital ward had died. Three days later, suffocated by the smell of the decomposing body, he was forced to leave the hospital amidst the bullets that resounded around him.
In Khartoum, the war between the two generals vying for power ended an already fragile health system, in a country punished by decades of wars and international sanctions.
After more than a week of open warfare in the center of the capital, which has more than 5 million inhabitants, patients and doctors describe the absolute horror.
Mohammed Ibrahim, 62, regularly visited his son Ibrahim, 25, at the hospital where he was being treated for leukemia.
On Saturday, April 15, her ordeal took a new turn with the death of the young man she shared a room with. He died, “but the body was left there because of the fighting,” the father told AFP.
‘CROWDED MORGERIES’
For doctor Attiya Abdalah, secretary general of the doctors’ union, scenes like this are not uncommon in Sudan amid chaos.
“Decomposed bodies remain in hospital rooms” due to lack of capacity to transfer them.
“The morgues are full, the bodies cover the streets, even the hospitals that treat the wounded can be forced to stop everything at any time”, he declares, exhausted.
The crossfire across the city does not spare doctors, patients or hospitals. “Either we stood in the middle of the putrid smell or we went outside to get shot,” says Mohammed Ibrahim.
Finally, the hospital administration resolved their son’s dilemma. “They told us to leave because of the fighting and because they were shooting at the hospital,” said the father.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that it recorded “eight deaths and two injuries” among medical professionals. In total, according to the union, 13 hospitals were bombed and 19 were forced to close due to lack of material or because they were taken over by combatants.
“We are forced to send patients home because they risk being shot and killed,” says Dr. Abdalah.
Mohammed Ibrahim had to carry his sick son in his arms, “on foot, under fire and in the middle of the fighting”, for five hours, until he managed to reach home, where Ibrahim will have to stay, because 75% of hospitals are out of order. , says doctor Abdallah.
TWO DOCTORS PER HOSPITAL
With everything rationed in hospitals in Khartoum and in other regions immersed in fighting, “there is a lack of medical and surgical equipment, fuel for generators, ambulances, blood bags”, reports doctor Abdallah.
“In some hospitals, it is the same medical team that has been working non-stop since April 15. In some institutions there is only one surgeon. Sometimes there are only two doctors left for the entire hospital”, he continues.
And all the calls for a humanitarian truce or the opening of safe corridors haven’t changed anything so far.
Health professionals are frequently attacked, denounces the UN, and hospitals are no longer the sanctuaries respected by combatants thrown into a fight to the death.
On social media, residents try to organize themselves to find medicine for their family members with chronic illnesses.
But stocks are dwindling, and Unicef warns that the fighting and power cuts could wipe out a supply of $40 million (R$201.9 million at current prices) in insulin and vaccines in the country.
On Friday, after another promised ceasefire was breached, the medical union explained on Facebook how to deal with a decomposing body, move it and bury it.
Struggle for Power
The conflict in Sudan involves Army commander General Abdel Fatah al Burhan, the country’s de facto leader, and his number 2, General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, commander of the Rapid Support Forces (FAR). In October 2021, they came together to stage a coup that ousted civilians from power.
Now, the troops of the two generals are in a fierce dispute over plans to integrate the FAR into the official army, a crucial condition of the agreement for the resumption of democratic transition in Sudan.
Since Saturday (15), intense shootings have not stopped in the country and have ended up killing a large number of civilians.
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