The intense, non-stop fighting in El Fasher, Sudan, leaves no safe place for civilians in the city as patients and medical staff are increasingly becoming part of the staggering civilian toll, warns Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). After the MSF-supported South Hospital was hit twice over the past few days, all three major medical facilities in the city have been damaged as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces face off in North Darfur's capital. Only two of these facilities are still able to function.
"We see a bloodbath unfolding before our own eyes in El Fasher. The intensity of the fighting is leaving civilians with no respite and now hospitals are being increasingly engulfed in the fighting, making it harder and harder to treat the wounded," says Claire Nicolet, MSF programme manager for Sudan. "Medical facilities should be protected and the warring parties should respect their neutral role as sanctuaries for the sick and wounded where people can safely receive medical assistance," she says.
El Fasher's South Hospital was first hit on 25 May, when a mortar landed on the ante-natal care unit killing one person and injuring eight among patients and their families. The next day a shell landed inside the hospital and injured three more people, while its fragments from the explosion broke the windows of the delivery room and of the ambulance. Three other shells landed outside the hospital.
"South Hospital is very congested: it is the only hospital capable .
