‘It is imminent’; Sudanese doctors warn against collapse of the health system

2023-04-29 06:31:37

The Sudanese Doctors Union warned today that “the collapse of the health system is imminent” and that a large part of the country’s hospitals are out of service due to the clashes that have been taking place for almost two weeks between the Army and the paramilitary group. Rapid Support Forces (FAR).

“Health services are threatened with closure due to continued military operations and continued violations of the ceasefire,” the union said in a statement.

Likewise, he warned that there is an “acute shortage” of medical material and personnel, as well as safe passages for ambulances to access the combat zones to care for the wounded, while he accused both the Army and the FAR of attacking sanitation.

According to the source, more than 70% of the hospitals located in the areas where the fighting is taking place have been completely out of service, while almost twenty medical centers have been bombed since the clashes broke out on 15 December. April.

This situation is also especially dire for patients with true insufficiency, as centers that provide dialysis to some 12,000 people are closing or running out of supplies, “putting the lives of these patients at risk.”

Sudan today entered the fourteenth consecutive day of fighting despite the fact that the Army and the FAR have agreed to extend the truce for an additional 72 hours, but fighting has continued in the capital, Khartoum, and in other areas in the west of the country.

The previous truce, also for 24 hours, was also violated from the outset, but the violence subsided and this made it possible to speed up the evacuations of citizens from foreign countries and the displacement of Sudanese to safer areas of the country.

According to figures from the United Nations and other institutions, close to 50,000 people have fled Sudanese territory to neighboring countries since the 15th, mainly to Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.

The UN estimates that, if it does not stop, the violence could cause the displacement of more than 270,000 people.

So far, at least 512 people have been killed and more than 4,000 injured in the clashes, according to Sudan’s doctors’ union.