2023-04-20 17:39:20
“There are photos that I cannot share because of the horror of the scenes”, politely warns Arafa Musa, from El-Fasher, the big city in North Darfur. The young woman is part of a resistance committee. These local pro-democracy branches spread throughout the country spontaneously made themselves available to a health system that is close to collapse on Thursday, April 20, the sixth day of the military conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the powerful paramilitary militia. Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The provisional toll now stands at 331 dead and 3,180 injured.
Casualties are heaviest in Khartoum State, followed by North Darfur. The only stretchers stained with blood on the photos sent by Arafa Musa suggest the violence of the clashes. Darfur, a vast region the size of Spain, has never really known peace since the start of the war in 2003, despite the agreement signed in Juba in 2020. But concern is still mounting. notch since Saturday, April 15, the date of the start of large-scale clashes between the two armed forces.
Seven out of ten hospitals out of service
“This is the first time that the conflict has reached this level since 2003”, assures Abdu Musa, the medical director of one of the four hospitals of El-Fasher, the last one still in service. The others are short of medicines, water, electricity or staff. Impossible to circulate in the middle of this city transformed into a battlefield. “All markets are closed. Residents stay at home. Because if they go out, they expose themselves to bullets”, describes the doctor. Most of the wounded and bodies he receives are children or the elderly. This Thursday, April 20, the flow of admissions has reduced, while fighting intensified in El-Obeid, 600 kilometers away.
In Khartoum too, the shelling continues. After a massive flight of populations the day before, the streets are deserted. Looters prowl, attracted by the empty apartments. To protect themselves, the few souls who venture outside are often equipped with a metal staff, or even an axe. Of the 74 hospitals in Khartoum state, 52 have closed, or about seven out of ten. In question, the lack of deliveries, evacuations because of the clashes or after requisition by the soldiers.
The hospital targeted by three missiles
The Ibrahim-Malik hospital, the largest in the capital, is an exception. After closing it on Monday evening, its teams managed, thanks to logistical support from the World Health Organization, to replenish enough stocks of drugs and other intravenous fluids to start welcoming patients again forty-eight hours later. The staff was also able to rest. Unlike the practitioners of the Ibn-Sina hospital, located about fifteen minutes by car.
“These are the same doctors who have been working since the beginning of the conflict. They are exhausted”, testifies the surgeon Alaaeldin Nogoud. The establishment received three missiles. “Shooting can come from anywhere, whether it’s aerial bombardment or live ammunition. These are the collateral damage of the war between the two generals”, details the one who witnessed, at the forefront, the deterioration of relations between the head of the army and that of the FSR.
Alaaeldin Nogoud is indeed one of the signatories of the framework agreement initialed on December 5 in order to break the deadlock of the putsch perpetrated a year earlier. An initiative that was shattered because of deep disagreements about the integration of militiamen into the ranks of the national army.
The surgeon fears that the current conflict resulting from this crisis will cause the total shutdown of hospitals. Heartbreaking sacrifices have already been made. Like this center for children with cancer which has just suspended its treatments.
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A conflict that risks overflowing
177 Egyptian soldiers arrested “by mistake” by the Sudanese army in the north of the country, were evacuated from Sudan on Wednesday, April 19, on board four planes, following mediation by the United Arab Emirates.
320 Sudanese soldiers fleeing deadly fighting in their country between the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) and the regular army crossed the border on Sunday 16 April and surrendered to the Chadian army.
Between 10,000 to 20,000 persons fled the fighting in Sudan to find refuge in neighboring Chad, according to teams from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
The highest leaders of the United Nations, the African Union, of the Arab League and other regional organizations were to meet on Thursday April 20 to once again call for a ceasefire.
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