Sudan Doctors Network says military use of hospital is ‘a blatant violation of sanctity of medical institutions’.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have converted a large part of Al-Nuhud Hospital in West Kordofan in wartorn Sudan’s south into a military command centre and barracks since their takeover of the city more than five months ago, according to the Sudan Doctors Network.
The nongovernmental organisation said on Friday that the RSF, the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) bitter rival in the brutal three-year civil war, has been preventing the hospital from fulfilling its essential role in providing healthcare for the population.
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“This military use of the health facility constitutes a blatant violation of the sanctity of medical institutions and undermines civilians’ right to access treatment,” the statement on Facebook said, adding that some of the medical personnel in the city have been accused of cooperating with the military before fleeing the city.
“As a result, the hospital is suffering from a severe shortage of healthcare workers, leaving the remaining medical services extremely limited and unable to meet patients’ needs,” it added.
Since April 2023, the SAF and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediation has failed to end.
The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others, causing what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.
Fleeing the horrors of el-Fasher
Hundreds of Sudanese children have arrived in the town of Tawila in Sudan’s western Darfur region without their parents since the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the city of el-Fasher last month, a humanitarian group says.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Thursday that at least 400 unaccompanied children had arrived in Tawila but that the real number was likely much higher.
The RSF seized control of el-Fasher – the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state – on October 26 after an 18-month siege that cut residents off from food, medicine and other critical supplies.
The paramilitary group has been accused of committing mass killings, kidnappings and widespread acts of sexual violence in its takeover of the city. The Sudanese army has also been accused of committing atrocities during the war.
Washington’s truce proposal
The United States has recently presented Sudan’s warring parties with a proposal for a ceasefire, but neither side has formally accepted it.
The RSF unilaterally declared a cessation of hostilities on Monday in line with US wishes.
But on Tuesday, the SAF said it had repelled an attack on a base in Babnusa in West Kordofan state, the newest front line in the war.
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan called on US President Donald Trump on Wednesday to bring peace to the country.
“The Sudanese people now look to Washington to take the next step: to build on the US president’s honesty and work with us – and those in the region who genuinely seek peace – to end this war,” Sudan’s de facto leader wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.
Attempts to broker peace between Burhan and his one-time deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, have repeatedly failed over the course of the war that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
Trump took a public interest in the war for the first time last week, promising he would end it after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman urged him to get involved.
