More than 70 dead after attack on fully occupied hospital in Africa!
By Gaby Mahlberg and Eva Krafczyk
Khartoum (Sudan) - At least 70 people have been killed and 19 others injured in an attack on a hospital in the provincial capital of the North Darfur region in Sudan .
At the time of the attack, the hospital in El Fascher was fully occupied, said the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (59), on Platform X. The victims were patients and their companions. Due to heavy bombardments, health care in the region was already severely restricted, Tedros continued.
According to the WHO chief, the Saudi facility was the "only functioning hospital in El Fascher". It offered services in the fields of gynaecology, obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery and paediatrics and had a center for nutritional stabilization.
Another health facility in El Malha in North Darfur had also been attacked the previous day, Tedros said. As a result, basic medical care for residents and displaced persons had been interrupted.
"We continue to call for an end to all attacks on health services in Sudan and for unrestricted access to be granted to restore damaged facilities quickly," the WHO chief wrote. Above all, the people of Sudan need peace, he emphasized. "Peace is the best medicine."
RSF militia issued an ultimatum to government troops
The UN Human Rights Office had already been worried for days about an expected attack on El Fascher. The RSF militia had issued an ultimatum to the government troops to leave the city of El Fascher by the afternoon, according to a statement from the UN organization in Geneva on Wednesday, 22 January.
The army, in turn, had reaffirmed its resistance to an attack. The Human Rights Office appealed to the parties to the conflict to take measures to protect the civilian population in accordance with international law.
In the power struggle in Sudan, which has been ongoing since April 2023, de facto ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan (65) is fighting against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (52) and his militia RSF. The RSF has been besieging El Fascher since last May and has also shelled the nearby Samsam refugee camp. El Fascher is the last large town in the region that is still under the control of government troops.
Most of the hospitals and health facilities in El Fascher have been destroyed in the fighting so far. According to humanitarian groups, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to supply the population.