Doctors attempt to resuscitate a victim of shelling at the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5. The victim was later pronounced dead.
Luke Dray for NPR
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Luke Dray for NPR
OMDURMAN, Sudan- A year and a half of war in Sudan has led to a humanitarian catastrophe in one of Africa’s largest countries. Up to 150,000 people have been killed according to some estimates. The fighting has displaced 12 million people, according to the United Nations, which calls it the “largest displacement crisis in the world.” And medical services in much of Sudan have collapsed.
NPR spent three days reporting from one hospital in Omdurman, a city in Sudan’s capital region, to see the toll facing hospitals and medical staff.
Patients in a ward in the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan.
Luke Dray for NPR
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52-year-old Dr. Jamal Mohammed is an orthopedic surgeon and the director general of Al Nao hospital in Omdurman.
Before the war, he lived in Khartoum with his family. But when the fighting began last April, his wife and children fled to Egypt, while he stayed behind.
When Khartoum was taken by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF in the early months of the war last year, Dr Mohammed fled to Omdurman, which is controlled by the army. Then he joined Al Nao Hospital working as a volunteer, and then leading it.
Dr. Jamal Mohamed poses for a portrait at the Al Nao Hospital.
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Like all the medical staff there, he hasn’t been paid a salary since the war began, only small stipends of less than $60
There used to be dozens of medical centers in Omdurman before the war. Most have been forced to shut down because of a lack of supplies, staff or funding, or because they’ve been destroyed by the fighting. Now there’s just seven and Al Nao is one of the largest still functioning.
The RSF controls large parts of the capital city, Khartoum, just across the Nile river. The Sudanese army has made gains there, in renewed fighting over the last week, and it also controls most of Omdurman.
People surround the bodies of two shelling victims as they lie on a corridor floor.
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Virtually every day, the army launches air strikes into Khartoum. The RSF constantly shell Omdurman, destroying homes, schools and hospitals.
Al Nao hospital has been shelled at least five times, according to Dr Mohammed, who says they’ve been deliberately targeted, which would constitute a war crime.
The day before NPR’s team arrived, it was shelled by the RSF, according to the hospital. While the team was there, the surrounding area was also shelled repeatedly.
A husband comforts his wife, injured by shelling, in a corridor at the Al Nao Hospital.
Luke Dray for NPR
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On one day, 20 people were rushed into the hospital emergency ward. Two of the casualties were pronounced dead when they arrived.
Medical staff fought to save a young man who was brought in unconscious. They administered CPR for several minutes before he died.
Everyday unidentified victims who died at the hospital are brought to a morgue.
An unidentified victim of shelling lies on a trolly in the morgue.
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Their pictures are taken and posted on social media, in the hope of reaching their families. But most of the time, no one claims them and they are buried in unmarked graves near the hospital.
Some of the victims treated at the hospital now live and work there too, like Farata Jadeen who lived nearby in Omdurman. In June last year, RSF fighters arrested him, accusing him of being affiliated to the army. They shot him in the face with a rifle, from behind his jaw, with the bullet piercing out from his nose. After almost 4 months of treatment at Al Nao, he survived.
Farata Jadeen received four months of treatment at Al Nao hospital.
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But by the time he was well enough to leave, his house was destroyed by the fighting.
Now he lives at Al Nao hospital, where he works as a cleaner. “Thanks be to God that I’m alive,” he said.