dpa
Khartoum
The ongoing fighting in Sudan has left 39 of the 59 hospitals and clinics in the capital Khartoum incapable of serving patients, the Sudanese Medical Committee said on Wednesday. Some hospitals had been bombed, others attacked and looted, it said.
The committee called for "urgent intervention” to protect medical staff and patients. People had already been evacuated from various hospitals in recent days. The committee said many facilities now had no electricity, medicines, drinking water or food. Children’s hospitals were also affected.
In the north-east African country, which has been politically unstable for years, the two most powerful generals and their units have fought for supremacy since Saturday. According to a DPA reporter, airstrikes on targets in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum intensified in the early hours of Wednesday morning, following dashed hopes a day earlier of a possible ceasefire. More gunfire was also heard. Tuesday’s collapsed ceasefire efforts marked the third failed attempt at getting the country’s de-facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, to cease hostilities. Daglo is the leader of the powerful Rapid Support Forces. The two men have led the gold and oil-rich country of some 46 million people since a military coup in 2021. The RSF agreed again on Wednesday to a 24-hour ceasefire. The ceasefire should be in place from early Wednesday evening (1600 GMT), the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. "We confirm our full commitment to a full ceasefire,” the group added. A confirmation of the ceasefire by the Sudanese military initially failed to materialize. International mediators have been trying for days to get the parties to the conflict to agree to a ceasefire to create humanitarian corridors.Since the fighting broke out, 270 people have died, and 2,600 have been injured, the UN says. Thousands of civilians are trapped in their flats and houses, often without electricity and without the possibility of getting food, water or medicine.