Hundreds killed in Darfur hospital attack; doctors abducted - VIDEO
For months, doctors at the last operational hospital in the war-torn Sudanese city of el-Fasher carried out surgeries by torchlight, desperately working to save lives in unimaginable conditions.
The Saudi Maternity Hospital was a last refuge for the sick and injured in the besieged city, as fighting raged around them. Despite no electricity, shortages of supplies, and frequently coming under heavy shelling, medical staff kept going, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
"They are heroes, honestly," said Dr Mohamed Faisal Elsheikh, a Sudanese medical doctor based in Manchester and a spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network.
"They really work in a very difficult environment, they had no medical instruments, there's no any medicines over there, there's no electricity…and yet with all dedication and commitment…they saved as much as they could of people's lives."
No longer. Since the city fell to the Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Sunday, the doctors have been kidnapped and reports have emerged of a massacre at the hospital.
"On 28 October, six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted," from the hospital, the World Health Organization said in a statement Wednesday. "On the same day, more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital."
WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply shocked" and "appalled" by the massacre and called for health facilities, health workers and patients to be protected under international law.
"Prior to this latest attack, WHO has verified 185 attacks on health care in Sudan with 1204 deaths and 416 injuries of health workers and patients since the start of the conflict in April 2023," he said.
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