KHARTOUM/NEW YORK, July 21, 2023—A team of 18 people working for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was violently assaulted by a group of armed men yesterday while transporting medical supplies to the Turkish Hospital in southern Khartoum, Sudan, where MSF provides medical care.
After arguing about the reasons for MSF’s presence, the armed men aggressively assaulted the MSF team, physically beating and whipping them. They detained the driver of an MSF vehicle, threatened his life before releasing him, and stole the vehicle.
Following this horrific incident, MSF's activities at the hospital are in jeopardy, and MSF cannot continue in this location if the minimum safety guarantees are not met. The Turkish Hospital is one of only two hospitals that remain open in all of southern Khartoum during an ongoing, devastating conflict between the Sudanese military and another heavily armed group, the Rapid Support Forces.
“In order to save people’s lives, the lives of our staff who are there to carry out this lifesaving work must not be put at risk," said Christophe Garnier, MSF’s emergency manager for Sudan. "If an incident like this happens again, and if our ability to move supplies continues to be obstructed, then, regrettably, our presence in the Turkish Hospital will soon become untenable."
MSF is one of only a few international medical humanitarian organizations still present in Khartoum, supporting hospitals in eastern Khartoum and Omdurman in addition to both hospitals in southern Khartoum.
