Health workers and patients are increasingly becoming targets in the war in Sudan as civilians are continuously plunged deeper into a humanitarian crisis with no end in sight.
Development Diaries reports that the intense, non-stop fighting in El Fasher, North Darfur, has left no safe place for civilians in the city after the South Hospital, supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), was hit twice over the past few days.
We understand that all three major medical facilities in the city have been damaged as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) face off in North Darfur’s capital leaving only two of these facilities functional.
El Fasher’s South Hospital was first hit on 25 May, when a mortar landed on the ante-natal care unit killing one person and injuring eight among patients and their families.
‘We see a bloodbath unfolding before our own eyes in El Fasher. The intensity of the fighting is leaving civilians with no respite, and now hospitals are being increasingly engulfed in the fighting, making it harder and harder to treat the wounded’, MSF Programme Manager for Sudan, Claire Nicolet, said in a statement.
‘Medical facilities should be protected and the warring parties should respect their neutral role as sanctuaries for the sick and wounded where people can safely receive medical assistance’.
An MSF employee was also killed on 25 May when his house was hit by the shelling in another demonstration of how no place in El Fasher is spared by the violence of this conflict.
Since the war erupted in April 2023, at least 15,000 people have been reported as casualties, most of them women and children, civilians meant to be protected by international humanitarian laws as relating to armed conflicts.
The time to find a resolution to the conflict is now, as the humanitarian situation of thousands is worsening.
Development Diaries reiterates its call to both warring parties to the conflict to avoid targeting civilians, health workers, and medical facilities, as international humanitarian laws protect them.
We also urge both parties to find a resolution to the conflict immediately, as the people of Sudan remain the ones bearing the brunt of the war.
Source: MSF
Photo source: MSF
