Sudan hospitals at risk as battle rages

KHARTOUM — As battle rages in Sudan, hospitals and medical professionals have been hit as they struggle to provide critical care to patients, including those affected by the current conflict.

Ibrahim Mohamed turned in his hospital bed to find the patient next to him had died, but fighting that erupted in Sudan's capital hours earlier meant the body could not be moved.

By the time Mohamed, a 25-year-old leukemia patient, was finally evacuated from the Khartoum Teaching Hospital, the body was still there.

"Because of the intense fighting, the person could not be moved and buried," Mohamed's father, Mohamed Ibrahim, 62, told Agence France-Presse.

Attiya Abdullah, general secretary of the Sudanese doctors' union, said the same was happening in other hospitals.

With explosions, heavy gunfire and airstrikes that have killed hundreds in the capital and in other parts of the country, "morgues are packed and the streets are littered with bodies", Abdullah said.

According to the doctors' union, 13 hospitals nationwide have been shelled and 19 others evacuated since the fighting began.

According to Abdullah, even hospitals that have remained open, "are at risk of closure at any time".

The World Health Organization said 413 people had been killed and 3,551 wounded across Sudan.

Daily appeals

Medics have made daily appeals for a cease-fire to allow humanitarian access to move through, transport the wounded and bury the dead.

On Friday, as a third cease-fire collapsed, the doctors' union shared advice on Facebook on how to handle, shroud and bury decomposing bodies.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday that the ministry has sent a task force to Sudan and the first group of Chinese citizens has been safely evacuated to a neighboring country.

"In the wake of the turn of events in Sudan, the Communist Party of China Central Committee has been deeply concerned about the safety of Chinese citizens there and the foreign ministry activated its consular emergency response mechanism at the first instance," Mao said at a regular news briefing in Beijing.

According to Mao, the ministry has worked closely with all relevant parties, including the Chinese diplomatic and consular missions in Sudan and its neighboring countries, to protect the safety of Chinese compatriots in Sudan with all-out efforts and formulate evacuation and relocation plans.

Mo Jingxi in Beijing contributed to this story.

Agencies via Xinhua