At least 85 people have died in a single hospital in the Darfur city of El-Fasher since fighting reignited between Sudan’s warring parties on May 10. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that in the period since the fighting erupted in the North Darfur state capital, the hospital had received 707 casualties and 85 have passed away.
On Monday alone, nine of 60 casualties received at Southern Hospital — El-Fasher’s only remaining medical facility — had died of their wounds. Claire Nicolet, head of the charity’s Sudan emergency program, stated that for over a year, fighting has raged between the regular military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Eyewitnesses have reported repeated artillery shelling and gunfire from both sides in El-Fasher, the only state capital in the vast western region of Darfur not under RSF control. Doctors Without Borders said the hospital is under intense pressure, with only one surgeon meeting casualties.
The ongoing war has shuttered over 70 percent of medical facilities across the country and stretched the remaining ones impossibly thin. Nicolet urged the warring parties to provide safe access to replenish medical supplies and help save lives. The UN has reported tens of thousands of people killed and nearly nine million forced from their homes since the war began.