\n
![](\"https:\/\/progressive.org\/downloads\/21440\/download\/FireAmdurmanSudan.jpg?cb=921c3c476383cf590e063214181620c4\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
As Sudan\u2019s brutal war between its military junta\u2019s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues<\/a> into its second year, the resulting violence has laid siege to hospitals across the country on a catastrophic scale. Since April 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) has verified at least 119 attacks<\/a> on medical facilities across Sudan, while medical and humanitarian aid workers have been attacked and killed<\/a> by both warring parties. Both the SAF<\/a> and the RSF have been accused of committing war crimes, and the RSF has additionally been accused of committing genocide<\/a> against the Massalit people in West Darfur.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sudan has been mired in political turmoil since the deposition of its long-time head of state, Omar Albashir, in a 2019 military coup. Its government was again overthrown in a second coup in 2021. With no indications of a possible transition to a civilian government in sight, infighting<\/a> between the coup\u2019s leaders over the integration of the RSF into the SAF escalated into civil war in 2023. Conflict over control of Sudan\u2019s military has since heightened into a bloodbath over territorial control, strategic infrastructure, and key resources like gold<\/a> and oil.<\/p>\n Relying on geospatial analysis and satellite imagery, physicians and public health experts at Yale University\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab and the Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA), which is active throughout Sudan, are collecting mounting evidence of war crimes committed by both the SAF and the RSF. Recent documentation<\/a> by SAPA reveals the extent of destruction to life-saving facilities in Khartoum State, including crucial damage to maternity wards, children\u2019s hospitals, cancer treatment, and neurosurgery and dialysis centers. Some, like Albuluk Children\u2019s Hospital in Karrari and the Radiation and Isotopes Center Khartoum-Alzarra, have been repeatedly attacked. Medical supplies are in severe shortage, while satellite imagery of the area reveals roofs collapsed in airstrikes, shadows of shelling, and smoke and debris littering hospital grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is only the damage that can be seen from space,\u201d says Danielle Poole, Associate Research Scientist and Director of Research at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. \u201cWhat is really shocking and devastating is the impact that this has on peoples\u2019 access to health care.\u201d<\/p>\n According to SAPA\u2014whose representatives did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication\u2014700,000 people in Khartoum State were affected by the destruction of hospitals between April 2023 and August 2024 alone. This data can be used for further forensic analysis to implicate Sudanese military and paramilitary leaders in war crimes: attacks on hospitals and health care workers violate international humanitarian law<\/a> and the Jeddah Declaration<\/a> of May 2023, which is intended to ensure the protection of civilians and safe delivery of humanitarian assistance by both warring parties. \u201cAll of these incidents,\u201d Poole tells The Progressive<\/em>, \u201crepresent potential violations of international humanitarian law.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Poole, Yale and SAPA are expanding documentation to include hospitals across Sudan, as fighting has expanded to other regions.\u00a0<\/p>\n On January 20, the RSF issued an ultimatum<\/a> to forces allied with the Sudanese military to leave El Fasher ahead of an imminent assault. United Nations Human Rights Office Spokesperson Seif Magango responded by calling for de-escalation<\/a> and urgent protection of civilians. Four days later, a drone strike<\/a> hit the only functioning hospital in El Fasher, the capital and largest city of Sudan\u2019s North Darfur region, as doctors and nurses were providing care to patients. Seventy people, including four children, were killed in the attack, according to<\/a> WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, while nineteen suffered non-fatal injuries. According to UNICEF, the children were being treated<\/a> for injuries from previous bombings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two months prior, the RSF attacked numerous medical facilities north of Wad Madani in the state of Al Jazirah, evicting patients and attacking and killing medical workers. In January, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported<\/a> that Wad Madani\u2019s blood bank had been destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition has reported<\/a> that combatants have occasionally occupied medical facilities for weeks, transforming hospitals into military bases with snipers on the roofs and armed personnel inside while attacking<\/a> health workers with impunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSome are deliberately attacked for providing life-saving assistance to populations under siege,\u201d Christina Wille, director of Geneva-based conflict monitor Insecurity Insight, tells The Progressive<\/em>. \u201cOthers are mistakenly targeted because their activities are perceived as military in nature\u2014for instance, traveling in convoys or working in locations where large groups of civilians gather to receive aid.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite progress like the reopening of Abu Haraz Hospital in the state of North Kordofan in January, Iman Ahmed, a public health expert formerly with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes the situation as draining and unsustainable, noting that there has not yet been any form of accountability for those involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur doctors on the ground have lived through attacks on health care throughout the thirty years of Omar Albashir\u2019s regime,\u201d Ahmed tells The Progressive<\/em>. \u201cThis time around, the attacks are at a massive scale. This has been a very sad game of musical chairs, where the forces of good, including Sudanese doctors in the diaspora, invest funds, technical support, and feet on the ground to reopen hospitals, only for the warring parties to re-attack, damage and destroy these facilities, and for the RSF specifically to\u2014time and again\u2014loot assets.\u201d<\/p>\n Making matters worse, President Donald Trump has called for a freeze on foreign aid through an executive order signed in January, throwing local aid efforts throughout the world into chaos. While a judicial stay has placed a temporary pause<\/a> on the grant freeze for United States Agency for International Development (USAID) programs, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has approved<\/a> an additional waiver for core life-saving humanitarian assistance for limited exceptions, Rubio also stated that \u201cno new contracts shall be entered into.\u201d Earlier this month, the Trump Administration further targeted USAID with mass layoffs, significantly curtailing<\/a> the organization\u2019s ability to provide life-saving assistance. As of January 31, a USAID spokesperson did not confirm with The Progressive<\/em> whether any of the agency\u2019s spared programs are related to Sudan.<\/p>\n The defunding of USAID has dire implications for Sudan, which is in need of significantly more international aid. The United Nations stated<\/a> that its $2.7 billion humanitarian appeal for Sudan in 2024 was only 57 percent funded at the year\u2019s end. The U.N.\u2019s humanitarian response plan<\/a> for 2025 requires $4.2 billion to support the 20.9 million people affected by the war. Last year, the U.S. accounted<\/a> for 45 percent of global relief funds for Sudan, with the majority going to food security, nutrition and health.\u00a0<\/p>\n International aid organizations cutting<\/a> jobs for Sudanese aid workers only months after the war erupted has further incapacitated the country\u2019s frontline response. A lack of life-saving medications and equipment has resulted in outbreaks<\/a> of preventable diseases including cholera, dengue fever, malaria, and polio.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAny suspension of financial support to aid efforts not only jeopardizes the provision of essential medical and humanitarian services but also increases the risks faced by health and aid workers,\u201d Wille told The Progressive<\/em> in the wake of Trump\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n With no ceasefire in sight, grassroots emergency response rooms (ERRs) continue to provide critical aid, even as volunteers are arbitrarily detained<\/a> or killed by Sudanese military and paramilitary combatants. But ERRs, which lack the equipment and capacity to deliver specialized care like cancer treatment and dialysis, cannot adequately care for the staggering eleven million<\/a> people in Sudan who need urgent medical care.<\/p>\n Ahmed emphasized the U.N.\u2019s commitment to upholding its principle of Accountability to the Affected Population (AAP) and the Humanitarian Grand Bargain of 2016, which require community involvement in decision making to prevent abuse by intermediaries and 25 percent of pooled global aid funds to go toward local actors like ERRs. \u201cInvesting in these frontliners will contribute to long term development goals of strengthening local capacity, supporting local peace initiatives, enhancing good governance and oversight, and effectively localizing the humanitarian response,\u201d says Ahmed.<\/p>\n As entire life-saving specialties have been destroyed in Sudan, Poole emphasizes the need for capacity-building for ERRs. \u201cIdeally, these volunteers would be professionalized and compensated for their work, so they could have ongoing training and support, as well as the required materials and equipment,\u201d she says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Yasser Essa, a governance, peacebuilding, and development practitioner and specialist in humanitarian emergency response who worked with numerous NGOs and UN agencies in Sudan, says that ERRs are vital lifelines for those in urgent need.<\/p>\n \u201cOften, this assistance is short-lived and reliant on external donor sources that can shift with the winds of international policy,\u201d Essa says, referring to a troubling cycle of dependency on international aid. \u201cTo truly tackle this medical crisis head-on, ERRs must be woven into broader, sustainable programs powered by international organizations, along with ongoing financial support that can strengthen their operational capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Sudan\u2019s brutal war between its military junta\u2019s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues into its second year, the resulting violence has laid siege to hospitals across the country on a catastrophic scale. Since April 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) has verified at least 119 attacks on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12022],"tags":[4373,3356,27741,44785,16930,2687,21167,32786,44784,25641,44786,3739],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-93927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activist","tag-africa","tag-collect","tag-crimes","tag-decimation","tag-dispatches","tag-doctors","tag-evidence","tag-hospitals","tag-lital-khaikin","tag-middle-east","tag-sudans","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\n