Assistance in jeopardy as MSF staff beaten, items stolen in Sudan
By Dickson Odhiambo
July 21, 2023
Assistance in jeopardy as MSF
staff beaten, items stolen in Sudan
FOUR Medecins Sans Frontieres {MSF} or Doctors
without Borders’s staff and four truck drivers together with a team of 10 daily
workers were stopped by a group of armed men while transporting medical
supplies to the Turkish Hospital in southern Khartoum, where MSF provides
health care.
After arguing about the
reasons for MSF’s presence, the armed men then aggressively assaulted the team
where they physically beat and whipped them.
They also detained the driver
of one of the vehicles as the armed men threatened the driver’s life before
releasing him.
They then reportedly stole the
vehicle following this horrific incident as MSF is warning that the organisation’s
activities in that hospital are now in serious jeopardy and will not be able to
continue if minimum safety guarantees are not met.
“In order to save people’s
lives, the lives of our staff who are there to carry out this lifesaving work
must not be put at risk. If an incident like this happens again, and if our
ability to move supplies continues to be obstructed, then, regrettably, our
presence in the Turkish Hospital will soon become untenable”, says Christophe
Garnier, MSF’s emergencies manager for Sudan.
The Turkish Hospital is one
of only two hospitals that remain open in the whole of southern Khartoum both
of which are supported by MSF.
MSF is one of only a few international
medical humanitarian organisations that is still present in the city,
supporting hospitals in east Khartoum and Omdurman in addition to south
Khartoum.
MSF is here helping the
Ministry of Health keep the hugely fragile health system afloat, but following yesterday’s
incident – and the series of incidents that have preceded it – the organisation
is beginning to think that its ongoing support may soon no longer be possible.
This incident happened just 700
metres away from the Turkish Hospital, where hundreds of patients including
children are currently undergoing treatment.
Only yesterday we received 44
patients who were wounded in an airstrike.
Three and a half weeks ago,
we received another mass influx of war wounded people mainly women and
children who were injured following the
escalation of fighting around the Central Reserve Police headquarters.
On a daily basis, this
hospital receives around 15 war wounded patients, carries out lifesaving
surgery and keeps patients with chronic diseases alive. Our teams work around
the clock under intense conditions to treat all those who need care, yet when
they leave the hospital they are being physically assaulted and abused.
MSF has treated over 1,600 war
wounded patients in Khartoum since the conflict began and our intentions are to
continue to do this. However, the security situation has deteriorated so
dramatically over the past few weeks that our presence in the Turkish Hospital
is now in question.
Since the escalation of the current
crisis in Sudan, MSF has been actively working in 12 states: Khartoum, Kassala,
Al-Jazeera, West Darfur, North Darfur, Central Darfur, South Darfur, Red Sea,
El-Gedaref, Blue Nile, River Nile, and White Nile States.
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