GENEVA (Reuters) – Gunmen attacked a Doctors Without Borders team in Sudan as aid workers brought medical supplies to a hospital in the capital, the medical department said on Friday amid months-long fighting between the country’s army and militias.
Attackers brutally attacked a group of 18 aid workers on Thursday as they tried to deliver supplies to a Turkish hospital south of Khartoum, the aid group said in a statement.
Reuters could not independently investigate the incident, and representatives of Sudan’s health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear which rival group might be behind the attack.
“After arguing about the reasons for MSF’s presence, armed men attacked the MSF team violently, physically assaulting and beating them,” wrote the charity, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). “They arrested the driver of the MSF vehicle, threatened him with his life before releasing him, and stole the vehicle.
Fighting broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, driving people out of the capital and launching a nationalist offensive in the western Darfur region.
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Those who have not fled the African country face a huge humanitarian crisis, with a lack of clean water, medical care and other essential services as aid groups try to help.
MSF said the incident jeopardized its operations at the hospital, one of only two that remain open in southern Khartoum.
“If an event like this happens again, and if our ability to deliver goods continues to be disrupted, then, unfortunately, our presence in a hospital in Turkey will soon become unpleasant,” said Christophe Garnier, MSF’s emergency manager in Sudan, adding that minimum security guarantees are needed to continue its work.
Local and international mediation efforts have so far failed to end the fighting, and UN officials fear Sudan could descend into civil war.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Geneva; Editing by Susan Heavey)
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