The Minister of Health, Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, revealed in an interview with the Russian agency “Sputnik” that Sudan recorded the highest rate of child mortality in the world, especially newborns, due to the year-long war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces. as a result of the destruction of refrigerators, vaccine stores and vaccinations necessary for children.”
The Sudanese minister explained that “it is not only children who face danger, there are more than 8,000 patients with kidney failure who need dialysis permanently, and we find it difficult to manage medical consumables for them, in addition to 18,000 cancer patients who also need medicines on a regular basis.”
Ibrahim pointed out that his country has witnessed widespread displacement between regions at a rate of one million displaced people per month, noting that “the biggest problem now is the migration of a large part of medical staff outside the country, and do not expect them to return again, and this causes us severe pressure, and even after the end of the fighting we will suffer severely.”
Ibrahim enumerated the damage caused to the health sector by the war, saying: “We lost 200 ambulances that were destroyed or seized, and also health personnel and ambulance service personnel were directly attacked, and 40 of them were killed while providing services in hospitals.”
Earlier, the head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, stated last Friday that he is not ready to negotiate with the Rapid Support Forces, as long as the war continues, stressing his commitment to the “Jeddah Platform” and the need to implement the “rapid support” of the commitments it has made.
Al-Burhan’s remarks came in a speech during his visit to the Omdurman military region, in which he said: “The armed forces have no problem with negotiation, but how does this process take place and in what way? As long as the war continues, we will not negotiate, and as long as there is an occupation of citizens’ homes and the cities of El Geneina, Nyala, Zalingei, Khartoum, El Daein and Al Jazeera, we will not negotiate.”
Monday 15 April marks the first anniversary of the outbreak of large-scale conflict in Sudan, and France, Germany and the European Union are set to co-host a humanitarian conference for Sudan and its neighbours in Paris.
The violence that has erupted in Sudan since April last year has killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, especially in the capital Khartoum.
