Sudan: EMERGENCY’s Hospitals will Remain Open For Anyone Who Needs Them

These are days of great concern.

News has been arriving from Sudan, of violent confrontations: people are dead or injured in the streets due to taking part in protests that have once again started across the country. After the coup which brought the Transitional Military Council (TMC) into power in April, protesters called for a democratic transition. And for the past two months, in front of the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, a sit-in protest against the government has been taking place, calling for power to be transferred from the military to civilians.

In the past few days, negotiations between the TMC and civil protests were interrupted when armed forces broke up the sit-in protest, leaving many dead or wounded. In a situation in which other organisations are preparing to evacuate their international staff, we are taking all possible precautionary measures to ensure the safety of our colleagues. EMERGENCY’s hospitals will remain open for anyone who needs them.

“The situation in the city is very tense. The military controls all the main streets, while civilians try to block them off,” explains Giacomo, our Hospital Manager at the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum, Sudan.

“Due to the disruption, some staff members have been unable to come to the hospital, but we’ve done everything we can to guarantee a high standard of care for patients. It’s difficult to predict what might happen in the next few hours, but we will remain at our post and continue to keep our facilities open.”