In War-torn Sudan, Volunteers Turn Schools Into Hospitals

In war-torn Sudan, volunteers turn schools into hospitals

Omdurman, Sudan, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th May, 2023 ) :In a Sudanese school turned makeshift hospital, a volunteer doctor hooks up a patient lying on a desk to an intravenous drip while nurses hand out medicines donated by neighbours.

As war has raged for six weeks and shuttered or destroyed many clinics, this school building in Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city across the Nile, has become an emergency healthcare centre.

A chalk message written on a blackboard outside says the volunteer-run field hospital provides free general medical care, minor operations and other services.

The volunteer medics treat children and people with diabetes, hypertension and other chronic illnesses, which are "now 10 times deadlier than bullets," said the doctor, Mohammed al-Taher.

Young activists have taken matters into their own hands since fighting erupted on April 15 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

In times of relative peace, the activists, known as local "resistance committees", used to organise pro-democracy protests. Now they collect water and food and run makeshift clinics for patients with nowhere else to go.

The public health sector has long been fragile in Sudan, where 65 per cent of the population lives in poverty. Now it faces compounded challenges, with three quarters of hospitals in combat zones out of service, according to the country's doctors' union.