Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspended all medical activities in Bashair Teaching Hospital, south of Khartoum, citing violent attacks against patients and staffers.
Khartoum: Altaghyeer
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) suspended all medical activities in Bashair Teaching Hospital, located in a Rapid Support Forces -controlled area south of Khartoum, saying the patients and staff have been under attack.
The charity strongly condemned the attacks explaining in a statement on Friday that “despite extensive engagements with all stakeholders, these attacks have continued in recent months, leading MSF to make the difficult decision to suspend all medical activities in the hospital.”
Bashair Teaching Hospital has experienced repeated incidents of armed fighters entering the hospital with weapons and threatening medical staff, often demanding fighters be treated before other patients.
On November 11, 2024, a patient was shot and killed inside the hospital and on December 18 attackers fired weapons inside the emergency ward, directly threatening medical staff.
“The suffering we witness in Khartoum is enormous,” said Claire San Filippo, MSF emergency coordinator. “Intense and extreme violence continues daily. Shortages and blockages of food, supplies, and humanitarian aid leave people scrambling to survive”, she added.
Filippo said that mass casualty incidents have become almost routine. “Our team, hospital staff, and volunteers have worked tirelessly in very difficult conditions to provide medical care. But without the security to operate safely, it has become untenable to continue as the lives of our staff and patients are threatened.”
Bashair Teaching Hospital is one of the last functioning hospitals in south Khartoum offering free medical care.
Since the end of September, the hospital has seen a surge in cases of people with violent trauma injuries as fighting has escalated.
“At times, dozens of people have arrived at the hospital en masse after shelling or airstrikes on residential areas and markets. Last Sunday 50 people were brought to the emergency room—12 of them already dead—after an airstrike less than one mile from the hospital”, the MSF said in the statement.
At the same time the hospital has seen an increase in pediatric and maternity patients as other health facilities have shuttered or reduced services.
The MSF and other staffers have also been responding to cholera, malaria, and dengue outbreaks, and are seeing very worrying levels of malnutrition.
The organisation said it is devastating to have to stop supporting lifesaving medical care at this hospital, particularly in the face of such great and growing medical needs.
