02:15
freezing billions
Medics struggle to revive Sudan's hungry with trickle of aid supplies
Reuters
In a Sudanese hospital, emaciated mothers cradle starving toddlers, their sunken eyes pleading for help. With war raging for nearly two years, food and medicine have all but disappeared. Doctors ration milk, families struggle to survive, and aid cuts threaten to make the crisis even deadlier.
In a nutrition ward at a hospital in Sudan's war-stricken capital, gaunt mothers lie next to even thinner toddlers with wide, sunken eyes.
The patients at Alban Jadeed Hospital are in urgent need of help after nearly two years of battles that have trapped residents and cut off supplies, but doctors have to ration the therapeutic milk and other products used to treat them.
The war that erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created what the United Nations calls the world's largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis.
About half of Sudan's population of 50 million now suffer some degree of acute hunger, and famine has taken hold in at least five areas, including several parts of North Darfur State in western Sudan.
The real situation could be worse, since fighting has prevented proper data collection in many areas, medics and aid staff say.
In Sudan's greater capital, where the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri are divided by the Nile, the warring factions have prevented deliveries of aid and commercial supplies, pushing the prices of goods beyond most people's reach.
Alban Jadeed Hospital, in Bahri's Sharg Elnil district, received more than 14,000 children under five years old suffering from severe acute malnutrition last year, and another 12,000 with a more mild form, said Azza Babiker, head of the therapeutic nutrition department.
Only 600 of the children tested were a normal weight, she said.
The supply of therapeutic formula milk via U.N. children's agency UNICEF and medical aid agency MSF is insufficient, Babiker said, as RSF soldiers twice stole the supplies.
Both sides deny impeding aid deliveries.
The sharp reduction of USAID funding is expected to make things worse, hitting the budgets of aid agencies that provide crucial nutritional supplies as well as community kitchens relied upon by many, aid workers say.
The army recently captured Sharg Elnil from the RSF, as part of recent gains it has made across the capital.
Fruit and vegetables have become extremely scarce. "Aside from the difficulty of getting these products in, not all families can afford to buy them," Babiker said.
Many mothers are unable to produce milk, often due to trauma resulting from RSF attacks, or their own malnutrition, said Raneen Adel, a doctor at Alban Jadeed.
"There are cases who come in dehydrated ... because for example the RSF entered the house and the mother was frightened so she stopped producing breast milk, or she was beaten," she said.
The RSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A lack of nutrition and sanitation has led to cases of blood poisoning and other illnesses, but the hospital has also run out of antibiotics.
"We had to tell the patients' companions to get (the drugs) from outside, but they can't afford to buy them," Adel said.
01:58
top military leadership
U.S. defense secretary Pete Hegseth orders 20% cut in top military leadership as part of Trump-era restructuring
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the military to cut 20% of its four-star generals and flag officers, part of a broader Trump administration effort to streamline defense leadership and reduce what it calls “unnecessary bureaucratic layers.”
00:17
arrives in DC
Canadian PM Carney arrives in DC for upcoming talks with Trump
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has arrived in Washington ahead of a closely watched meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, as tensions rise following Trump's revived remarks suggesting Canada could become the 51st U.S. state.
23:18
impact
The far-reaching impact of Trump's proposed Hollywood tariffs
President Donald Trump's recent proposal to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made films has sent shockwaves through the global entertainment industry.
21:00
Baku hosts international conference on Azerbaijan’s pharmaceutical industry
Azerbaijan’s growing pharmaceutical sector was in the spotlight at the international conference “The Pharmaceutical Industry of Azerbaijan: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” held in Baku and organized by the Health Ministry and the Embassy of Hungary.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment