Daily TribuneSudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers reported that the hospital was hit by an army drone strike.
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — A strike on a hospital in Sudan killed 64 people and wounded 89 others, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday, with 13 children counted among the dead.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the attack on Friday hit El-Daein Teaching Hospital in the state capital of East Darfur, adding that “enough blood has been spilled” and it was time to stop the nearly three-year conflict ravaging Sudan.
The hospital “was struck, killing at least 64 people, including 13 children, two female nurses, one male doctor, and multiple patients,” he announced on X.
Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers reported that the hospital was hit by an army drone strike.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) dominate the vast Darfur region in western Sudan, while Sudan’s army is in control of the east, center and north.
Tedros said eight health staff were among the wounded in Friday’s attack, which damaged the hospital’s pediatric, maternity and emergency departments.
The hospital is now non-functional “due to the extensive damage,” he said, which resulted in a “critical interruption of essential medical services.”
Tedros said the WHO was supporting local health partners to help fill urgent gaps by scaling up capacity at other health facilities, including by increasing capacity to treat the injured, and deploying trauma care supplies and essential medicines.
‘Devastating human toll’
RSF-controlled El-Daein has been regularly attacked by the Sudanese army, which is trying to push the paramilitaries back towards its Darfur strongholds and away from Sudan’s central corridor.
Its most recent strike on the city’s market earlier this month set fire to oil barrels that burned for hours.
In a statement carried by the official news agency SUNA, the Sudan Armed Forces said it “adheres to international norms and laws.”
The army added that “attacking service and health facilities is a persistent practice and a daily activity of this terrorist militia,” referring to the RSF.
The WHO’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA) counts and verifies such attacks, but it does not attribute blame as it is not an investigative agency.
The United Nations’ humanitarian office in Sudan said it was “appalled by the attack.”
To the repeated condemnation of the UN, hospitals have been a regular target throughout the war, which erupted in April 2023.
As a result of Friday’s tragedy, the total number of people killed in attacks on health care in the conflict has now passed 2,000.
The WHO’s SSA site showed 2,036 people have now been killed in 213 such attacks.
“Beyond the devastating human toll, attacks on health care have immediate and long-term consequences for communities already in desperate need of both emergency and routine medical services,” Tedros said.
