CAIRO: The world’s only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan’s two-year war, its director and another expert say.
Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.
It is often characterised by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands.
“The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan,” Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Center (MRC), told AFP.
“We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years,” said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.
“It’s difficult to bear.”
Since April 15, 2023, Sudan’s army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.
The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.
Sudan’s health care system has been left at the “breaking point,” according to the World Health Organization.
Among the conflict’s casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.
A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.
AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC’s current condition.
The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.
Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.
The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan’s neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.
For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.
Drawing on the MRC’s expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan’s government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.
“Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards,” said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi’s head of mycetoma.
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Sudan war destroys world’s only research center on skin disease mycetoma: director
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Sudan war destroys world’s only research center on skin disease mycetoma: director
- Mycetoma is a neglected tropical disease common among farmers
- It is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts
Syria moves military reinforcements east of Aleppo after telling Kurds to withdraw
ALEPPO: Syria’s army was moving reinforcements east of Aleppo city on Wednesday, a day after it told Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area following deadly clashes last week.
The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.
The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.
The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometers further east, as well as toward the south.
State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.
Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight.
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
’Declaration of war’
The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group.
On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.
Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.
Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack.”
“The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.
Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.
Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.
PKK, Turkiye
On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.
Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.
“Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
“This government has not honored its commitments toward any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.
Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organizations.”
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.
On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.
A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.
Aleppo civil defense official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after the fighting.
The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.
The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.
The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometers further east, as well as toward the south.
State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.
Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight.
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
’Declaration of war’
The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group.
On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.
Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.
Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack.”
“The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.
Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.
Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.
PKK, Turkiye
On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.
Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.
“Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
“This government has not honored its commitments toward any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.
Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organizations.”
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.
On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.
A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.
Aleppo civil defense official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after the fighting.
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