Khartoum - The health sector in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, is facing an unprecedented state of deterioration and warnings of its collapse due to the ongoing armed conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces since April 15, without any glimmer of hope to stop it, despite the announcement 5 times of a humanitarian truces that allow the opening of humanitarian corridors, and enable health teams to bury hundreds of bodies lying on the roads, but none of this happened.

Most public and private hospitals are located in the heart of the Sudanese capital, where violent confrontations take place in the vicinity of the General Command and the presidential palace, making health facilities an insurmountable target in the context of obtaining field advantage in fighting in which various methods of fighting are used, including bombing with aircraft, cannons and heavy weapons.

And tells doctors and escorts patients of the island net moments of horror and panic lived during the first days of the war before they were forced to evacuate hospitals of patients after being bombed and controlled by armed forces and taken as a place to direct military operations.


Musab Ali, a doctor at a government hospital in Khartoum, said that the hospital administration took a decision to evacuate it four days after the outbreak of clashes, although dozens of patients were in critical condition, some in intensive care, as it was decided to transfer them to hospitals far from the fighting areas after the building was subjected to devastating shelling.

Musab does not hesitate to describe the current situation as a virtual collapse of treatment institutions after the scarcity of medical materials and the increasing demand for health services due to the large number of wounded arriving at hospitals, at a time when electricity and water services are cut off, and the caterers of meals intended for patients are unable to deliver them due to security threats on the streets.

And tells the escort of her mother in a private hospital east of Khartoum for the island net indescribable moments of fear and panic lived after the fall of 3 shells on the hospital, and then decided doctors evacuated, especially with the lack of fuel operating generators and lack of food, and adds that "the last night before we leave fed my mother - which was in intermediate care - some custard and biscuits", and indicates that doctors were changing their clothes that indicate their identities after the Rapid Support Forces attacked other facilities and took their colleagues By force to treat their injured.

Bombing hospitals

The Doctors' Syndicate revealed earlier that 9 doctors and medical students were killed during clashes between the army and the Rapid Support, and confirmed in its latest report on Sunday that 70% of hospitals adjacent to the areas of clashes were out of service.

Of the 85 essential hospitals in the capital and the states, 61 are out of service, and 25 are fully or partially operational, some of which provide only first aid and are also threatened with closure due to shortages of staff, medical supplies, electricity and water.

Al-Baraha Hospital in Khartoum was bombed on Sunday, according to the Doctors' Syndicate, which counted 16 treatment institutions being bombed, while 19 of them were forcibly evacuated, and 16 ambulances were attacked, some of which were not allowed to pass to transport patients and deliver aids.

The army spokesman said in a statement on Sunday that what he described as Rapid Support rebels turned the East Nile Hospital into a heavily armed military barracks and a command center for operations after evacuating patients, including critical cases in intensive care.

The fierce war spread to several states, which was reflected in patients and hospitals in those areas, where the shelling and closure affected 4 hospitals in El-Obeid (the capital of North Kordofan state), and service stopped at El Geneina Teaching Hospital (West Darfur) after the attack on it, and service was also stopped at Al-Daman Hospital in the city of Meroe in the northern state, and in El Fasher in North Darfur state, the service was suspended at its teaching hospital for children, women and obstetrics.


The road to disaster

The specialist in anesthesia and intensive care at Soba University Hospital in Khartoum, Haitham Makkawi, asserts that the health system is moving strongly to a "major humanitarian disaster" that will appear in the coming days, and summarizes – in his speech to Al Jazeera Net – its features in several axes, the most important of which is the ability to deal with diseases or ambulance the injured, and adds that "government hospitals are almost completely out of service, and we replace them with some private hospitals that have accepted coordination by providing free services."

"Even the private sector has been affected because one of the parties to the crisis decided to turn hospitals into field command centers or hospitals of its own, in a repetitive approach, attacking first aid and intimidating doctors, and this contributed to increasing the crisis," he said.

Makkawi pointed out that the health system is already centralized, and if the center paralysis hits, as happened in Khartoum and Omdurman hospitals, all the basic system comes out, and attempts are now being made - as he says - to provide services in the periphery of Bashaer Hospital (south of Khartoum), which operates at incomplete capacity, as well as transferring the service to the Turkish Hospital, which is one of the secondary hospitals.

"If there is an opportunity to rescue the injured and they have safe crossings, there is no way to get them to a hospital," he said.

First shipment of life-saving humanitarian aid arrives in Port #Sudan, for Sudanese hospitals and the Sudan Red Crescent Society volunteers providing medical care to those wounded in the fighting👇 https://t.co/lptncGCxkg

— ICRC (@ICRC) April 30, 2023

Drug crisis

On Sunday evening, the armed confrontations moved to the arena surrounding medical supplies (the huge government center for storing medicines), amid fears that the bombardment would be prolonged and affected by the confrontations in a way that could leave a major crisis in medicines, which before the armed conflict suffered from shortages of many types, especially life-saving.

Moreover, Dr. Makkawi says that many pharmacies have been broken and vandalized, which has contributed to the scarcity of medicine, and many pharmaceutical factories have been targeted, which will result in a "major disaster" because this means the loss of locally manufactured medicine, the loss of raw materials from which we make medicine, and the loss of the machine and machine. "To be able to bring these things back, we may need a year or two if anyone thinks of investing again," he said.

Makkawi also noted that the stocks of medicines that were at the airport were attacked, which leads to a drug crisis that produces a situation that he describes as frightening.

The tragedy of corpses

In light of the inability of the relevant authorities to deal with hundreds of bodies dumped on the roads of Khartoum and its suburbs due to the continued armed confrontations, the Ministry of Health issued advice to citizens to deal with the bodies to prevent a potential environmental disaster, including the need to wear protective clothing, spray the corpse with pesticide if it is rotting, and requested that the bodies be numbered using cardboard and placed near the corpse, then take pictures from several directions covered by the identification number, along with other tips to enable the identification of the deceased. Later.

Dr. Makkawi stresses that the bodies on the roads represent a major environmental threat, especially since some areas do not have health personnel to deal with them in the right way, and with the possibility of rain in the coming days, Makkawi warns of a very complex situation awaiting the capital, Khartoum.

In turn, the Ministry of Local Government in the shadow government of the Sudan Building Party proposed a package of ideas to deal with the remnants of military operations - including corpses - and called on the state government to declare a state of emergency to remedy the crisis, address the lack of services and maintain security in residential neighborhoods, and also called for the allocation of new lands to bury the bodies of unidentified victims in coordination with the military, judicial and health authorities.