“WHO is shocked by the recent attack on South Hospital, the only facility with surgical capacity in El FasherDarfur,” the UN agency said in a message on
According to reports, the hospital had to close after Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soldiers entered the building and opened fire. The NGO that helps run the hospital, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said on X that the armed fighters stole equipment and an ambulance.
The consequences of Wad Al-Nura
In a related social media post, WHO condemned a “new attack” on a health facility in Wad Al-Nura in Al-Jazirah state south of Khartoum, which caused the death of a nurse on duty at the time and for patients took care. .
“WHO strongly condemns the attacks on healthcare. Healthcare workers and patients should not risk their lives to provide and access healthcare servicesthe UN agency said, days after an attack on the village by RSF paramilitaries with heavy artillery reportedly left more than a hundred dead.
Warning from the rights chief
UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday added his voice to the widespread international condemnation of that attack, citing evidence collected by his office that “indicates that the RSF used weapons with major consequences, including artillery shells, during the attack.”
Formerly the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke out against the “very devastating impact” on civilians of the clashes between Sudanese forces and the RSF in El Fasher in the far west of the vast country.
In addition to personal appeals in separate phone calls to the generals of the rival armies, Mr Türk warned that more than 1.8 million residents and internally displaced persons in the city were under siege “and with a threat of famine”.
Any further escalation “would have a catastrophic impact on civilians and would deepen intercommunal conflict, with disastrous humanitarian consequences,” the High Commissioner stressed.
Hunger crisis
The humanitarian emergency caused by the heavy fighting that broke out in Sudan last April is now on the verge of becoming a disaster the world’s largest hunger crisis.
According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), 18 million people in Sudan are in acute food insecurity, including nearly five million people now in the grip of emergency levels of hunger.
“This is the highest number ever recorded during the harvest season… About 90 percent of those in need are in areas where access is extremely limited due to heavy fighting and restrictions,” the WFP said in an appeal for urgent funding .
