As hospitals close and doctors flee, Sudan's health system is collapsing

Medical workers who remain face meager supplies and harsh conditions, even setting up field hospitals in living rooms amid fighting .

With the battle for control of Sudan entering its third week, health services are rapidly deteriorating in the national capital, Khartoum, a grim consequence of the fighting brutal ones that raised fears that the conflict could escalate into a wider one. humanitarian crisis.

The total collapse of the health system could be in a few days, the Sudanese doctors' union has warned.

Hospitals have been bombed and two-thirds of those in Khartoum have closed, according to the World Health Organization. More than a dozen healthcare workers have been killed, officials said. Beyond that, "hidden victims" are dying of sickness and disease as basic medical services have become scarce, said Dr Abdullah Atia, general secretary of the doctors' union.

"We get a lot of calls every day: 'Where should I go?' ", did he declare. "These are the questions we are unable to answer."

Fighting that broke out on April 15 between a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army – both led by warring generals – have left more than 500 dead and thousands injured, the W.H.O. said, throwing Africa's third largest country into chaos as one declared a ceasefire after another collapsed.

ImageA photograph released by Doctors Without Borders shows a hospital in El Fasher, in Sudan's North Darfur region, on April 19.Credit... Ali Shukur/Doctors Without Borders, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Millions of civilians remained trapped. The final truce to allow civilians to escape was due to end at midnight on Sunday, and although the Rapid Support Forces announced they would extend a humanitarian ceasefire for another three days, fighting was reported in the capital.

The Sudanese army agreed in a statement on Sunday to extend the truce, but accused the Rapid Support Forces of violating the truce and occupying a hospital. The R.S.F., in turn, said that the army looted medical supplies.

In response to the worsening situation, the office of the Secretary General of United Nations said it was "immediately" the dispatch of Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, to Sudan.

"The scale and speed of what is unfolding is unprecedented in Sudan," Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said in a statement.

Other nations rushed to evacuate their citizens by all means...