RIYADH: As government officials and foreign nationals evacuate the country, many civilians in Sudan have found themselves caught in the crossfires between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, forced to shelter in place without necessities such as food, water, and medical supplies.
The International Committee of the Red Cross Regional Director for Africa Patrick Youssef says the major obstacle preventing them from rendering aid to civilians in Khartoum is security.
“The hostilities are happening in densely populated areas, in places where we live, where we have our offices. And the most complicated issue we have to deal with…is security,” Youssef said.
He said that the situation on the ground is not allowing teams from the Red Cross, Red Crescent and non-governmental organizations to move freely.
There was some hope in providing humanitarian aid to civilians after the declaration of a 72-hour ceasefire, but this quickly collapsed following reported gunfire and fighter jets hours into the ceasefire.
“The ceasefire was not respected by all sides all the time. So, when we say 72 hours, I think we need to correct that. We need to speak about a few hours of the ceasefire,” Youssef said, adding that considers the impact of the ceasefire to be “very modest.”
These few hours may have helped in allowing some civilians to emerge from where they were sheltering in place to search for family members or food, Youssef explained, but it did not allow organizations to build a pipeline to bring in medical assistance from abroad through Port Sudan.
When asked about the current status of the healthcare system in Khartoum, Youssef said he received reports from the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health that over 60 percent of the hospitals in the capital had stopped working or were out of service.
A lack of supplies and the difficulty of creating a safe area for medical professionals to provide care is impeding aid from reaching civilians, he explained.
“It’s difficult to know where the medical staff are. Can they join the hospitals? Are they all fully accounted for? Second, are these hospitals subject to attacks? Are they still functional, structurally speaking?” he said.
Youssef commended the efforts of the Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers for their courage since the beginning of the demonstrations in Khartoum in 2019.
“They’ve been on the ground retrieving dead bodies. We know that they’ve (given) everything they can to support some of the hospitals with their limited resources,” he said.
Youssef stressed that the Sudanese Red Crescent has not stopped its work but is being impeded by the obstacles on the ground.
“That’s exactly where we are today, trying to see with the authorities how we can first and foremost create a bridge to bring in the needed medical assistance, surgical or otherwise, but also to see how we can incentivize the medical staff to remain where they are,” he said.
“And that’s not easy. You’re asking someone to remain under shelling or under bombing. And that’s not good. Hence, our call from Day 1 was to protect the medical mission.”
Youssef stressed that “without maintaining a solid medical service in a country that is hard hit by several deficiencies...we are headed toward a catastrophe that is already in the making.”
When asked what the first step was that must be taken to aid civilians on the ground, Youssef said that a ceasefire was necessary.
“We need we need those guns to fall silent for…a couple of days, with the full respect of both sides and clear coordination mechanisms,” he said.
