‘Oxygen is running out’: Doctors call on UK to get aid into Sudan saying medics are losing hope

People gather to get water using a generator due to a power cut as clashes between Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army continue, in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 12, 2023. Reuters/ Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah

Report from i news

By Sally Guyoncourt

Dated Wednesday 17 May 2023 11:31 am; Updated 3:01 pm

‘Oxygen is running out’: Doctors call on UK to get aid into Sudan saying medics are losing hope

Medics have called on the UK for more help with supplies in Sudan, saying oxygen and blood are running out

Sudan’s doctors have called on the UK to send urgent medical aid to their country, saying oxygen and blood are running out, medics are “exhausted and depressed” and decomposing bodies are piling up on the streets of Khartoum.

They say that a shortage of medical supplies and equipment is putting thousands of lives at risk, and that it needs to go “the last mile” to reach those who need it most.

Dr Ahmed Elleithi, president of the Sudan Doctors’ Union in the UK (SDU-UK), told i: “For every person killed by a bullet there are 100 people killed from chronic and acute disease.

“We have to keep our people alive, we need medical equipment, food, basic medical supplies.

“We need UK government aid to reach the people who need it most. It’s no good leaving it at the port – it must reach the last mile. We need a safe corridor to reach people.”

For patients with long-term healthcare issues such as cancer and kidney problems, receiving essential treatment has become increasingly difficult.

Dr Elleithi said: “All of this has come to a standstill, more than 5,000 people don’t have access to cancer treatment.”

Those needing regular kidney dialysis or awaiting a kidney transplant are missing out on regular treatment. “All of these people are in risk of death,” he said.

The plea comes as fighting intensifies in Sudan and the healthcare situation on the ground deteriorates rapidly.

An abandoned hospital in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, as fighting continues in Sudan (Photo:AFP/Getty)

Khartoum has been pummelled by airstrikes and artillery fire, according to witnesses, and there has been shelling in neighbouring cities of Bahri and Omdurman.

The conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has triggered unrest elsewhere in Sudan, especially in the western region of Darfur, but remains concentrated in the capital Khartoum.

Speaking at a SDU-UK press conference on Tuesday evening, Dr Ahmed Abbas said “street fighting is taking place on most of the streets in Khartoum”.

The spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors’ Union, who recently returned to the UK after working in Sudan, said around 60 out of the 86 hospitals in Khartoum and the surrounding area were no longer functioning and those remaining were only taking emergency cases.

They were, he said, struggling to maintain any kind of service with both electricity and water supplies regularly cut off.

He told how one emergency operation had to be conducted using only the light from mobile phones. 

“Oxygen, blood, IV supplies are in short supply and running out,” he said. “Doctors are working round the clock.

“They are exhausted, drained, fatigued and depressed and unfortunately they cannot be replaced.”

And they are risking their lives each time they go to work on “roads which are hazardous and dangerous”, he added.

He said the latest death toll was 822 with another 6,000 severely injured since the conflict began last month.

He said there was also a public health risk from the fact that “more dead bodies are piling up on the streets of Khartoum, some corpses are decomposing… attracting numbers of animals and insects, which is a major problem”.

A raid on the National Public Health Laboratory in Khartoum by fighters, which is now occupied by armed forces, also poses a health risk to residents.

“There are some very rare specimens, some vaccines and some viruses which are used for teaching and research [in there],” said Dr Abbas, “if these are not kept safe there is a risk to the area of Khartoum.”

While healthcare services are severely disrupted by the conflict, Dr Abbas said there had also been verbal threats from a senior doctor in the Sudanese military to doctors who are treating those on both sides of the conflict.

“The threats against the doctors has to be condemned,” he said.

Concerns were also raised by the union about the working relationship between doctors on the ground in Sudan and the nation’s ministry of health, particularly around safe passage of healthcare staff and patients for treatment.

Dr Abbas said: “Sadly, there is no collaboration or co-operation with the ministry of health.”

But Sudan’s acting minister of health, Dr Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, said he “acknowledged the reality” for healthcare workers in Sudan adding that “we would like to work together”.

A doctor points at the damage outside the East Nile Hospital in Khartoum, Sudan (Photo: RSF/Reuters)

The United Nations humanitarian response plan has called for $2.56bn to help people affected by the crisis in Sudan while the UN refugee agency is seeking more $472m to assist more than one million people over the next six months.

Ramesh Rajasingham, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva and director of the co-ordination division, said: “Today, 25 million people, more than half the population of Sudan, need humanitarian aid and protection.

“This is the highest number we have ever seen in the country.

“The funding requirements of nearly $2.6bn is also the highest for any humanitarian appeal for Sudan.”

The UK Government announced at the start of May an initial £5m of aid to Sudan offering items such as food, shelter, medical care and clean water.

But Andrew Mitchell, international development minister, acknowledged at the time “while this aid will help alleviate some of the immediate suffering in the region, the ongoing violence is creating huge additional needs”.

He said the UK was continuing “to pursue all diplomatic avenues to end the violence, de-escalate tensions and secure safe humanitarian access” adding “there can be no aid without safe access and a ceasefire which is permanent.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has been approached by i regarding new UK aid commitments to Sudan.

View original: https://inews.co.uk/news/world/oxygen-doctors-uk-aid-sudan-medics-losing-hope-2345974?ico=related_stories

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#NoToWar - Heroes aid Khartoum "You are welcome" - Hadhreen "We are present and ready to help"

Here is some heartwarming news. Warning: It brings tears to ones eyes.

Report from: BBC News

By Mohanad Hashim & Lucy Fleming

Published Friday 21 April 2023 c.11:26 GMT BST UK. Full copy:

Sudan fighting: The unsung heroes keeping Khartoum residents alive

As two generals slug it out in Sudan with little thought to the devastation they are causing, there is a whole grassroots network of people tirelessly helping those caught in the crossfire.

"Anyone know a family in need of foodstuffs within the borders of Omdurman al-Thawrat?" tweets a dental student in the capital, Khartoum. The message goes on to give out a number, saying flour, rice and pasta are available.

Khartoum and its surrounds has a population of around 10 million people and for nearly a week they have had no water or electricity, most hunkering down inside - away from windows in case of incoming fire. Most of the city's hospitals are closed and more than 300 civilians have been killed.

To get any supplies people must venture outside to find a shop that has some stock - and there are accounts of a dreadful stench now coming from the dead bodies that litter the streets.

WhatsApp groups, Facebook and Twitter are alive with offers of help for those who find themselves without food or medication or giving information about safe routes to leave the city. Most of them - and those messages with pleas for help - are accompanied by the hashtag #NoToWar.

"Currently, we have 750 food baskets available. One basket is enough for a family of six people," another Khartoum tweeter posts.

Others have been collating invaluable information, like a lengthy list sent out by @Jia_Elhassan about where water can currently be found in different areas of the city.

This message accompanies an address and phone number listed as one of five places in Omdurman: "Anyone who needs water, our house is open for them 24 hours."

REUTERS Image caption, People are desperate to find water with many areas cut off since Saturday

Someone else puts out a tweet with a photo of insulin pens available, along with his phone number.

'Terrified orphans at risk'

Much of this altruism is led by young volunteers operating at a local neighbourhood level by what are called "resistance committees". There are thousands of them across the country.

They have been the backbone of a pro-democracy movement that rose up following the ousting of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019, calling for a return to full civilian rule.

IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, Civilians are bearing the burnt of the fighting as rival military factions bombard each other

Their task has mainly been to organise peaceful protests against the military junta. Last Sunday, the co-ordinating body of Khartoum's resistance committees sent out a message to "revolutionaries in the neighbourhoods" asking them to prepare to help fellow residents.

In particular they were asked to form "medical rooms to deal with possible injuries", to monitor food supplies and "raise the slogan #NoToWar".

"The only ones to lose from war are the people, so let us unite to overcome that," the message said.

Small charities like Hadhreen, which translates from Arabic as "We are present and ready to help", have also been instrumental in trying to co-ordinate help for those in need.

When Nazim Sirag, who heads Hadhreen, heard about more than 300 terrified children at an orphanage in Khartoum in need of food, water and medicine. He tweeted: "We can't provide milk for new-born babies, everyone is afraid."

In response to our query via WhatsApp if any help had been found through his network, he says: "We are trying to reach them. Till now we failed. Everyone in Sudan is scared to go out," adding that the orphanage was in one of the "hot areas".

"Tomorrow we have [to] try early in the morning. Wish us luck."

Mr Sirag has been instrumental since the 2021 coup in liaising with Sudanese doctors unions in the diaspora as he sought to get medical help abroad for some of those injured in pro-democracy protests.

These diaspora medics have long been key to propping up Sudan's precarious health system over years of economic decline.

Mohamed Hamadto, a trauma surgeon and treasurer of the Sudan Doctors Union in the UK, told the BBC his group has tended to focus on training initiatives, but since the outbreak of violence last Saturday they had been raising funds to send to the main Sudanese Doctors Union in Khartoum and collecting supplies they hope to fly in when the situation allows.

So far they have received about £9,000 ($11,000) from donations - and this money will help the central doctors union buy supplies privately for clinics being repurposed on the outskirts of Khartoum as most of the city's 59 hospitals are now closed because of the fighting.

"These hospitals on the periphery need to be ready for increasing numbers of civilian victims," Dr Hamadto says, with some reports suggesting up to 600 people have now died.

As do small neighbourhood health centres.

"I was just speaking to one of my colleagues and she's trying to get her resistance committee to set up a local health centre so they can provide basic first aid to people who are injured because the area she lives in is bombarded heavily," he says.

This is in al-Siteen Street, not far from the airport and army headquarters where the battles are raging.

The Sudanese Doctors Union will then be able to provide bandages, fluids, antibiotics and other basics to her health centre for trauma injuries.

'My cousin broke my heart'

Relatives abroad are also focusing their help on the doctors.

"Everything is closed. There's zero point in sending money [to our family]," Ahmed Abdel-Elrazig, a third-year maths and economic undergraduate at the University of Toronto, told the BBC on Thursday.

"Right now it's the holy month of Ramadan. I was on a call to one of my cousins and they broke my heart - they told me that even after they broke their fast they still were hungry because they were rationing food.

IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, A week before the fighting, Ramadan revellers enjoyed the breaking of their fast. Now Eid prayers have been cancelled in many mosques

He is part of the Canadian university's Sudanese Students Union, set up last year with about 100 members. A few days ago the union put up a Sudan crisis crowdfunding page.

"We're trying to do our best to hit our goal right now to raise $10,000… so all injured civilians do have the medical attention that they do require. We're currently partnered with the Sudanese Doctors Union," he says.

"This is the bare minimum that we can do - I still feel extremely helpless."

Fellow student union member Fawzia Elhad, majoring in political science and psychology, agrees as she worries about her parents and siblings in Khartoum.

"There is a lot of uncertainty - and they don't know now whether to leave the capital."

Those in cities outside Khartoum are reaching out with offers of accommodation for people who do manage to leave - a journey fraught with danger.

"I am your brother from Rufa'ah and I can provide housing with 100 beds, electricity and water for people," someone 140km (85 miles) south-east of Khartoum in El Gazira state tweets.

An organiser in that state's capital, Wad Medani, sent out a list with the names and numbers of six people willing to provide "housing, food and everything" for those fleeing.

This warmth of spirit - such a stark contrast to the men in uniform - is best summed up by a youth group in Atbara, a city about 300km north-east of Khartoum, which posts a link to join a WhatsApp group to help receive those escaping from the capital, beginning with the words: "You are welcome."

View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65344673

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