PORT SUDAN: 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.
On Monday alone, nine of 60 casualties received at Southern Hospital — El-Fasher’s only remaining medical facility — had died of their wounds, said Claire Nicolet, head of the charity’s Sudan emergency program.
In the period since the fighting erupted in the North Darfur state capital, the hospital had received “707 casualties” and “85 have passed away,” she added.
For over a year, fighting has raged between the regular military, under army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast western region of Darfur not under RSF control and is a key humanitarian hub for a region on the brink of famine.
This month, it has been the site of fierce battles, despite repeated pleas including from the United Nations for fighters to spare the city.
Eyewitnesses have reported repeated artillery shelling and gunfire from both sides, as well as air strikes from the army.
Trapped in their homes by the fighting, many residents are unable to brave the violence on the streets to get wounded loved ones to the hospital.
Doctors Without Borders said casualties who reach Southern Hospital are met by “only one surgeon, putting the facility “under intense pressure.”
Across the country, the war has shuttered over 70 percent of medical facilities and stretched the remaining ones impossibly thin.
“We have only around 10 days of supplies left” for Southern Hospital, Nicolet said, urging the warring parties to provide “safe access” to enable them to replenish stocks.
Since the war began, tens of thousands of people have been killed, including up to 15,000 in a single West Darfur town, according to UN experts.
Nearly nine million people have been forced from their homes. By the end of April, North Darfur alone hosted more than half a million people newly displaced in the last year, according to the latest figures from the UN.
At least 85 dead from fighting in Sudan’s El-Fasher: charity
https://arab.news/9h6rx
At least 85 dead from fighting in Sudan’s El-Fasher: charity
- On Monday alone, nine of 60 casualties received at Southern Hospital — El-Fasher’s only remaining medical facility — had died of their wounds
- El-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast western region of Darfur not under RSF control
One killed in attack on oil tankers off Iraq, rescue operation ongoing: authorities
- Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement on Thursday it had “deep concern” about incidents involving oil tankers in the Gulf, without providing details
BAGHDAD: An attack on two oil tankers near Iraq killed at least one crew member, authorities said on Thursday, as Iran carries out a campaign to disrupt global energy markets.
Farhan Al-Fartousi, from Iraq’s General Company for Ports, told state television that one crew member had been killed and 38 rescued while the “search continues for the missing.”
He did not specify the crew members’ nationalities or provide details on who was behind the attack, which occurred roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the coast.
The Iraqi government’s media cell told national news agency INA that “two tankers were subject to sabotage.”
Iraq’s oil ministry said in a statement on Thursday it had “deep concern” about incidents involving oil tankers in the Gulf, without providing details.
“The safety of navigation in international maritime corridors and energy supply routes must remain free from regional conflicts,” the ministry added.
The Strait of Hormuz — the waterway carrying a fifth of the world’s oil — remains closed to almost all oil tankers, and Iran has vowed that not one liter of oil would be exported from the Gulf while its war with the United States and Israel continues.
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that US forces have struck 28 Iranian mine-laying vessels more than a week into the Middle East war.
Images of a ship at sea with plumes of smoke rising from a huge fire, were broadcast by state television channel Al-Ikhbariya. AFP could not verify the images.
An employee at Iraq’s Basra oil terminal told AFP that it was unclear “whether it was a drone attack or explosive-laden boats.”
The Iraqi State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) confirmed in a statement that two oil tankers were attacked, without providing details on how.
Maltese-flagged oil tanker ZEFYROS was attacked as it was preparing to enter the port of Khor Al-Zoubair, where it would have taken on board an additional 30,000 tons of liquid naphtha — primarily used in petrochemicals, SOMO said.
The second targeted vessel, SAFESEA VISHNU, was sailing under the Marshall Islands flag and was chartered by an Iraqi company, according to SOMO.
The incidents come just hours after the US embassy in Baghdad warned that Iran and Tehran-backed Iraqi armed groups might target US-owned oil facilities in Iraq.
