One year ago, a war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in the capital city of Khartoum and the fighting has rapidly spread across the country since.&nbsp;

This was amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and months before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, both of which continue to rage on, but the conflict in Sudan has mostly been overlooked and the impact is devastating.&nbsp;

In one year, more than 8.5 million Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes, which has led to one of the world’s largest displacement crises, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).&nbsp;

The war has also pushed millions into extreme hunger, triggered waves of ethnically driven killings and sexual violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, and reportedly left millions of Sudanese children in the line of fire.&nbsp;

<h2>Humanitarian situation&nbsp;</h2>

Nearly two million out of the at least 8.5 million displaced have fled across the border into neighbouring South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia, according to the data by the UN.&nbsp;

South Sudan is hosting most of the refugees from Sudan with around 640,000 people, and 1,800 people are still arriving every day, according to the UNHCR.&nbsp;

“Sudan has experienced the almost complete destruction of its urban middle class: architects, doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers, and students have lost everything,” said UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado.&nbsp;

WATCH |&nbsp;Germany pledges more aid for Sudan

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Speaking about the situation on the ground, Sarrado said that “access constraints, security risks and logistical challenges are hampering the humanitarian response.”&nbsp;

The UNHCR spokesperson also noted that the situation for women and children is particularly alarming as they are arriving in “remote areas with little to nothing and in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care.”

“Parents and children have witnessed or experienced appalling violence, making psychosocial support a priority,” said Sarrado.&nbsp;

Half of the children in Sudan are currently or have been within five kilometres of the front lines of the fighting and have been left vulnerable to “gunfire, shelling, air strikes and other violence,” said a report by the United Kingdom-based charity, Save the Children.&nbsp;

More than 10 million children have been exposed to bombings, missile strikes, and direct attacks, since the beginning of the war, according to the analysis by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and the UK-based charity.&nbsp;

“Children in Sudan have suffered unimaginably – they have seen killings, massacres, bullet-littered streets, dead bodies and shelled homes while they live with the all-too-real fear that they, themselves, could be killed, injured, recruited to fight or subject to sexual violence,” said Dr Arif Noor, Save the Children’s head in Sudan.&nbsp;

Sudan, according to the UN, is facing the largest child displacement crisis in the world. One in three has lost school access and out of the 25 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and support, 14 million are children.&nbsp;

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Several aid agencies and their workers in Sudan have raised the alarm saying that the war-torn country is headed towards a larger-scale calamity of starvation and could see mass deaths because of it in the upcoming months.&nbsp;

Tens of thousands of people or even hundreds of thousands could die in the upcoming months due to malnutrition-related causes, said Justin Brady, head of the OCHA in Sudan.&nbsp;

“This is going to get very ugly very quickly unless we can overcome both the resource challenges and the access challenges,” Brady said.&nbsp;

He also called on the international community to ask both sides to stop fighting and raise funds for the UN humanitarian effort in the war-torn country. Sarrado also noted that the “funding remains critically low”.

However, the international community has paid little attention as the UN agency which needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food and other humanitarian aid for 24 million Sudanese people has only received $145 million, according to OCHA.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, the food prices in the war-torn country have risen by 45 per cent in less than a year due to less production, stalled imports, and the movement of food being impacted by the fighting, said OCHA.&nbsp;

<h2>‘A forgotten crisis’</h2>

The “level of international neglect is shocking,” Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in a statement.&nbsp;

According to the medical charity, only 20-30 per cent of health facilities are functioning across the country. Therefore, with most of the country’s health system collapsed there have been reports of outbreaks of diseases including measles and cholera.&nbsp;

However, with most of the international community focusing towards the Middle East, and before that on the Ukraine war, the situation in Sudan has significantly deteriorated.&nbsp;

“Sudan is described as a forgotten crisis. I’m starting to wonder how many people knew about it in the first place to forget about it,” said Brady, as quoted by the Associated Press.&nbsp;

He added, “There are others that have more attention than Sudan. I don’t like to compare crises. It’s like comparing two cancer patients...They both need to be treated.”

The fighting that tore through the Sudanese capital after April 15, also spread to Darfur and to the state of Gezira state, which turned into an aid hub where many have sought refuge.&nbsp;

Outside of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur has also witnessed atrocities including killings, displacement and rape. RSF and its allies have been accused of rampant sexual violence and ethnic attacks on African tribes’ areas in the region.&nbsp;

Earlier this year, a report by the UN said that a series of attacks on the ethnic African Masalit tribe killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.&nbsp;

At least 159 cases of rape and gang rape have been reported in the past year, nearly all of them in Khartoum and Darfur. The head of the Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence Against Women, a government organisation, Sulima Sharifm, said that the figures are just the tip of the iceberg.&nbsp;

Ahmed, 50, who had fled with his wife and four children from Khartoum told Reuters about his ordeal to get out of the war-torn country.&nbsp;

The 50-year-old said RSF troops pulled them from a car as they tried to escape Wad Madani to seize their vehicle and even lost his 75-year-old mother-in-law after the arduous, three-day journey.&nbsp;

He then paid smugglers to come to Egypt. Notably, Cairo had suspended visa-free entry for women, children, and men over 50 after the war broke out and Sudanese poured into the country.&nbsp;

“Because of Al-Burhan and Hemedti, our lives were completely shattered. We lost everything we owned,” he told Reuters over the phone from Cairo.

<h2>No end in sight&nbsp;</h2>

Over the past year, there have been sporadic interventions between Sudan’s warring factions led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the RSF Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.&nbsp;&nbsp;

In the initial months, the warring sides had agreed on brief pauses in fighting offering some respite to the citizens, but it was often short-lived after ceasefires agreed upon in Jeddah after mediations by the United States and Saudi Arabia, were repeatedly violated and the process faltered.&nbsp;

While Hemedti’s forces have overrun much of Darfur, al-Burhan has moved the government and his headquarters to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.

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“Both warring parties have committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, amounting in some cases to war crimes and other atrocity crimes,” said Human Rights Watch, in a statement.&nbsp;

The international organisation has called on countries to tackle the “shamefully low levels of humanitarian funding”.

<h2>Countries pledge to ramp up funding</h2>

The United States, on Sunday (Apr 14) ahead of the meeting of European diplomats in Paris to mark the first anniversary of the devastating conflict, announced that it would announce an additional $100 million in aid for the war-torn country, reported Reuters.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said that Berlin would provide $260 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, in Paris, on Monday (Apr 15).&nbsp;

“We can manage together to avoid a terrible famine catastrophe, but only if we get active together now,” Baerbock said, adding that the worst-case scenario, one million people could die of hunger this year.&nbsp;

During the conference, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné noted that the Sudanese crisis has been pushed into the background.

“It is obvious that the series of crises - I am thinking of Gaza and Ukraine - have pushed the Sudanese crisis into the background,” Séjourné said.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies) 
&nbsp;

One year ago, a war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in the capital city of Khartoum and the fighting has rapidly spread across the country since.

One year ago, a war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in the capital city of Khartoum and the fighting has rapidly spread across the country since. This was amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and months before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, both of which continue to rage on, but the conflict in Sudan has mostly been overlooked and the impact is devastating. In one year, more than 8.5 million Sudanese have been forced to flee their homes, which has led to one of the world’s largest displacement crises, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The war has also pushed millions into extreme hunger, triggered waves of ethnically driven killings and sexual violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, and reportedly left millions of Sudanese children in the line of fire. Humanitarian situation Nearly two million out of the at least 8.5 million displaced have fled across the border into neighbouring South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia, according to the data by the UN. South Sudan is hosting most of the refugees from Sudan with around 640,000 people, and 1,800 people are still arriving every day, according to the UNHCR. “Sudan has experienced the almost complete destruction of its urban middle class: architects, doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers, and students have lost everything,” said UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado. WATCH | Germany pledges more aid for Sudan Speaking about the situation on the ground, Sarrado said that “access constraints, security risks and logistical challenges are hampering the humanitarian response.” The UNHCR spokesperson also noted that the situation for women and children is particularly alarming as they are arriving in “remote areas with little to nothing and in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care.” “Parents and children have witnessed or experienced appalling violence, making psychosocial support a priority,” said Sarrado. Half of the children in Sudan are currently or have been within five kilometres of the front lines of the fighting and have been left vulnerable to “gunfire, shelling, air strikes and other violence,” said a report by the United Kingdom-based charity, Save the Children. More than 10 million children have been exposed to bombings, missile strikes, and direct attacks, since the beginning of the war, according to the analysis by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and the UK-based charity. “Children in Sudan have suffered unimaginably – they have seen killings, massacres, bullet-littered streets, dead bodies and shelled homes while they live with the all-too-real fear that they, themselves, could be killed, injured, recruited to fight or subject to sexual violence,” said Dr Arif Noor, Save the Children’s head in Sudan. Sudan, according to the UN, is facing the largest child displacement crisis in the world. One in three has lost school access and out of the 25 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and support, 14 million are children. Also Read | Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong to step down on May 15; Lawrence Wong to take charge Several aid agencies and their workers in Sudan have raised the alarm saying that the war-torn country is headed towards a larger-scale calamity of starvation and could see mass deaths because of it in the upcoming months. Tens of thousands of people or even hundreds of thousands could die in the upcoming months due to malnutrition-related causes, said Justin Brady, head of the OCHA in Sudan. “This is going to get very ugly very quickly unless we can overcome both the resource challenges and the access challenges,” Brady said. He also called on the international community to ask both sides to stop fighting and raise funds for the UN humanitarian effort in the war-torn country. Sarrado also noted that the “funding remains critically low”. However, the international community has paid little attention as the UN agency which needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food and other humanitarian aid for 24 million Sudanese people has only received $145 million, according to OCHA. Meanwhile, the food prices in the war-torn country have risen by 45 per cent in less than a year due to less production, stalled imports, and the movement of food being impacted by the fighting, said OCHA. ‘A forgotten crisis’ The “level of international neglect is shocking,” Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in a statement. According to the medical charity, only 20-30 per cent of health facilities are functioning across the country. Therefore, with most of the country’s health system collapsed there have been reports of outbreaks of diseases including measles and cholera. However, with most of the international community focusing towards the Middle East, and before that on the Ukraine war, the situation in Sudan has significantly deteriorated. “Sudan is described as a forgotten crisis. I’m starting to wonder how many people knew about it in the first place to forget about it,” said Brady, as quoted by the Associated Press. He added, “There are others that have more attention than Sudan. I don’t like to compare crises. It’s like comparing two cancer patients...They both need to be treated.” The fighting that tore through the Sudanese capital after April 15, also spread to Darfur and to the state of Gezira state, which turned into an aid hub where many have sought refuge. Outside of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur has also witnessed atrocities including killings, displacement and rape. RSF and its allies have been accused of rampant sexual violence and ethnic attacks on African tribes’ areas in the region. Earlier this year, a report by the UN said that a series of attacks on the ethnic African Masalit tribe killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. At least 159 cases of rape and gang rape have been reported in the past year, nearly all of them in Khartoum and Darfur. The head of the Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence Against Women, a government organisation, Sulima Sharifm, said that the figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Ahmed, 50, who had fled with his wife and four children from Khartoum told Reuters about his ordeal to get out of the war-torn country. The 50-year-old said RSF troops pulled them from a car as they tried to escape Wad Madani to seize their vehicle and even lost his 75-year-old mother-in-law after the arduous, three-day journey. He then paid smugglers to come to Egypt. Notably, Cairo had suspended visa-free entry for women, children, and men over 50 after the war broke out and Sudanese poured into the country. “Because of Al-Burhan and Hemedti, our lives were completely shattered. We lost everything we owned,” he told Reuters over the phone from Cairo. No end in sight Over the past year, there have been sporadic interventions between Sudan’s warring factions led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the RSF Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. In the initial months, the warring sides had agreed on brief pauses in fighting offering some respite to the citizens, but it was often short-lived after ceasefires agreed upon in Jeddah after mediations by the United States and Saudi Arabia, were repeatedly violated and the process faltered. While Hemedti’s forces have overrun much of Darfur, al-Burhan has moved the government and his headquarters to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. Also Read | Women may have been 'target' of Sydney knife attacker: Australian police “Both warring parties have committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, amounting in some cases to war crimes and other atrocity crimes,” said Human Rights Watch, in a statement. The international organisation has called on countries to tackle the “shamefully low levels of humanitarian funding”. Countries pledge to ramp up funding The United States, on Sunday (Apr 14) ahead of the meeting of European diplomats in Paris to mark the first anniversary of the devastating conflict, announced that it would announce an additional $100 million in aid for the war-torn country, reported Reuters. Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, said that Berlin would provide $260 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, in Paris, on Monday (Apr 15). “We can manage together to avoid a terrible famine catastrophe, but only if we get active together now,” Baerbock said, adding that the worst-case scenario, one million people could die of hunger this year. During the conference, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné noted that the Sudanese crisis has been pushed into the background. “It is obvious that the series of crises - I am thinking of Gaza and Ukraine - have pushed the Sudanese crisis into the background,” Séjourné said. (With inputs from agencies)

Sudan civil war: Millions displaced, children in the line of fire as fighting rages on after a year

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has warned that the earlier estimate of around one million people&nbsp;fleeing the nation due to the Sudan War by October is potentially an underestimation. As per Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)&nbsp;Filippo Grandi, the escalating conflict could lead to increased human trafficking and arms proliferation throughout the fragile region.

<h2>What did the UN refugee agency chief say?</h2>

UNHCR initially predicted that around 800,000 Sudanese and 200,000 individuals of other nationalities would leave Sudan in six months, but the agency's head, Filippo Grandi, now believes these figures may be an underestimation.&nbsp;

Speaking during an interview in Cairo, Grandi said: "This projection, that in the next few months we'll reach these high figures, may even be conservative."

"At the beginning, I didn't believe it would be, but now I'm beginning to be worried."&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/dozens-of-babies-die-in-orphanage-as-sudan-war-takes-grim-toll-on-khartoum-report-597873">Dozens of babies die in orphanage as Sudan war takes grim toll on Khartoum: Report</a>

He expressed concern about the collapse of law and order in Sudan and said that with "a lot of people desperate to move on" the situation is ripe for creating conditions for human trafficking. He also said that the circulation of arms across borders could exacerbate the violence.&nbsp;

"We've seen it in Libya with the Sahel. We don't want a repeat of that because that will be a multiplier of crisis and of humanitarian problems," he said.

<h2>Displacement to date</h2>

Reuters reports that since the outbreak of war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, over 350,000 individuals have already fled Sudan, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan.

Since the conflict began, nearly 160,000 people have crossed from Sudan into Egypt, which already had a significant Sudanese community residing within its borders.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/sudan-100000-refugees-have-fled-into-neighbouring-countries-number-could-rise-to-800000-un-588196">Sudan: 100,000 refugees have fled into neighbouring countries, number could rise to 800,000 - UN</a>

Furthermore, within Sudan itself, more than one million people have been displaced due to heavy fighting in the capital Khartoum and violence in Darfur.

<h2>International aid needed for Sudan</h2>

The UN has appealed for $470 million to address the refugee crisis in Sudan over a six-month period, but according to Grandi, only one&nbsp;per cent of the requested amount has been funded.&nbsp;

Emphasising the need for a donor-pledging conference, Grandi expressed concern that the international community's focus on other global issues, such as Ukraine, was diverting attention from the Sudanese crisis.&nbsp;

"You can clearly sense a disparity which is very dangerous. This crisis has the potential to destabilise an entire region and beyond as much as Ukraine does in Europe."

To address the urgent needs of those affected, UNHCR, as per Grandi, is trying to establish a presence in the northern Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa, where many Sudanese men aged 16 to 50 are waiting for visas to enter Egypt. Additionally, he said aid must be delivered to the buffer zone between Egyptian and Sudanese border posts, where displaced individuals have encountered lengthy delays.&nbsp;

(With inputs from agencies)

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The head of the United Nations refugee agency has warned that the earlier estimate of around one million people fleeing the nation due to the Sudan War by October is potentially an underestimation.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency has warned that the earlier estimate of around one million people fleeing the nation due to the Sudan War by October is potentially an underestimation. As per Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi, the escalating conflict could lead to increased human trafficking and arms proliferation throughout the fragile region. What did the UN refugee agency chief say? UNHCR initially predicted that around 800,000 Sudanese and 200,000 individuals of other nationalities would leave Sudan in six months, but the agency's head, Filippo Grandi, now believes these figures may be an underestimation. Speaking during an interview in Cairo, Grandi said: "This projection, that in the next few months we'll reach these high figures, may even be conservative." "At the beginning, I didn't believe it would be, but now I'm beginning to be worried." Also read | Dozens of babies die in orphanage as Sudan war takes grim toll on Khartoum: Report He expressed concern about the collapse of law and order in Sudan and said that with "a lot of people desperate to move on" the situation is ripe for creating conditions for human trafficking. He also said that the circulation of arms across borders could exacerbate the violence. "We've seen it in Libya with the Sahel. We don't want a repeat of that because that will be a multiplier of crisis and of humanitarian problems," he said. Displacement to date Reuters reports that since the outbreak of war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, over 350,000 individuals have already fled Sudan, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan. Since the conflict began, nearly 160,000 people have crossed from Sudan into Egypt, which already had a significant Sudanese community residing within its borders. Also read | Sudan: 100,000 refugees have fled into neighbouring countries, number could rise to 800,000 - UN Furthermore, within Sudan itself, more than one million people have been displaced due to heavy fighting in the capital Khartoum and violence in Darfur. International aid needed for Sudan The UN has appealed for $470 million to address the refugee crisis in Sudan over a six-month period, but according to Grandi, only one per cent of the requested amount has been funded. Emphasising the need for a donor-pledging conference, Grandi expressed concern that the international community's focus on other global issues, such as Ukraine, was diverting attention from the Sudanese crisis. "You can clearly sense a disparity which is very dangerous. This crisis has the potential to destabilise an entire region and beyond as much as Ukraine does in Europe." To address the urgent needs of those affected, UNHCR, as per Grandi, is trying to establish a presence in the northern Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa, where many Sudanese men aged 16 to 50 are waiting for visas to enter Egypt. Additionally, he said aid must be delivered to the buffer zone between Egyptian and Sudanese border posts, where displaced individuals have encountered lengthy delays. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Sudan war: UNHCR chief warns mass exodus estimates of one million people may be 'conservative'

In the days after war erupted in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah rushed between rooms at Sudan’s largest orphanage, trying to care for hundreds of babies and toddlers as the fighting kept all but a handful of staff away. Children’s cries rang through the sprawling building as heavy gunfire rocked the surroundings, she said.

Then came waves of deaths. There were the infants housed on the upper floors of the state-run orphanage, known as Mygoma. Without enough staff to care for them, they succumbed to severe malnutrition and dehydration, the doctor said. And there were the already-fragile newborns in her medical clinic on the ground floor, some of whom died after developing a high fever, she said.

“They needed to be fed every three hours. There was no one there,” said Abdullah, speaking by phone from the orphanage, the cries of wailing babies audible in the background. “We tried to give intravenous therapy but most of the time we couldn’t rescue the children.”

The daily deaths ticked up to two, three, four and higher, Abdullah said. At least 50 children - at least two dozen of them babies - have died at the orphanage in the six weeks since the war broke out in mid-April, according to Abdullah. That includes at least 13 babies who died on Friday, May 26, she said.

A senior orphanage official confirmed those figures and a surgeon who has volunteered at the facility during the war said there had been at least several dozen deaths of orphans. Both said the deaths were mostly of newborns and others under a year old. All three cited malnourishment, dehydration and infections as the main causes.

There were further deaths over this past weekend. Reuters reviewed seven death certificates dated Saturday or Sunday that were shared by Heba Abdullah, an orphan-turned-carer. All cited circulatory failure as the cause of death and all but one also listed fever, malnutrition, or sepsis as contributing causes.

The scenes of babies lying dead in their cribs have been “terrifying,” Abdullah said. “It is very painful.”

Reuters spoke to eight other people who have either visited the orphanage since the war began or have been in touch with other visitors. All said conditions have deteriorated badly and deaths have spiked.

Among them is Siddig Frini, general manager of Khartoum state’s Ministry of social development, which oversees care centres, including budget, staffing and supplies. He acknowledged a rise in deaths at Mygoma, attributing it mainly to staff shortages and recurrent power outages caused by the fighting. Without working ceiling fans and air conditioning, rooms turn stiflingly hot in Khartoum’s baking May weather, and the lack of power makes sterilising equipment difficult.

Frini and the director of the orphanage, Zeinab Jouda, referred questions about the total death toll to Abdullah, Mygoma’s medical chief. Jouda said she was aware of more than 40 deaths, telling Reuters the fighting kept the carers - known as nannies - and other staff away in the early days of the war. As of Friday, May 26, she said that there are ongoing discussions about evacuating orphans out of Khartoum.

Mohammed Abdel Rahman, director of emergency operations at Sudan’s health ministry, said a team is investigating what is happening at Mygoma and will release the results once done.

The area remains dangerous. Late last week, airstrikes and artillery slammed the district where Mygoma is located, according to Abdullah the doctor and two others. Following an explosion at a neighbouring building, babies had to be evacuated from one of the orphanage's rooms, said carer Heba Abdullah.

<h2>Invisible victims of a larger war</h2>

Mygoma’s dead babies are among the invisible victims of the war in Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country by area. The fighting has killed more than 700 people, injured thousands of others and displaced at least 1.3 million people within Sudan or neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations.

The real death toll is likely to be higher. Many of the health and government offices that would track fatalities in Khartoum, where fighting has been heaviest, have ceased to function. Sudan's health ministry has separately recorded hundreds of deaths in the city of El Geneina in the Darfur region, where violence also has flared.

War erupted in Khartoum on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The two had been preparing to sign on to a new political transition to elections under a civilian government. Together they had toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup.

On May 20, the two sides signed a seven-day ceasefire agreement to allow the delivery of humanitarian relief. The accord brought some respite from heavy fighting in the Sudanese capital but little increase in aid.

Representatives for the army and RSF didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Sudan, with a population of about 49 million, is among the poorest countries in the world. The fighting has hammered its already stretched healthcare and other infrastructure, including hospitals and airports. Nearly 16 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance before the war began. That figure has now jumped to 25 million, according to the United Nations. More than two-thirds of hospitals in combat areas are out of service, according to the World Health Organization.

Emad Abdel Moneim, general manager of al-Dayat, Sudan’s largest maternity hospital, said hospital staff had to relocate in late April because of the war. He said staff moved a large number of patients but had to leave some behind: those on ventilators and in incubators. Evacuating them would have required well-equipped ambulances, which were unavailable. He said around nine babies died, in addition to an unspecified number of adults in the intensive care unit. Two other sources confirmed some patients were left behind, but said they had no information about deaths.

When asked about the deaths at the maternity hospital, Abdel Rahman, the national health ministry official, said he was unaware of any, and that he doubted patients were left behind and declined to elaborate further.

Underscoring the health fallout on Sudanese of all ages, there have also been deaths at a care centre for the elderly in Khartoum, according to care worker Radwan Ali Nouri. He said five of the elderly residents of the al-Daw Hajoj centre have died due to hunger and lack of care. Nouri shared one photograph of what he said was the covered body of a resident who had died that morning.

Frini, the Khartoum state social development official, said the deaths reported at the elder care centre are within the “normal rate” and denied that any residents have died of hunger.

The number of people dying in the violence is a fraction of those succumbing to illnesses, said Attia Abdullah, secretary general of the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, a doctors’ union. “The health situation is deteriorating every day,” he said.

<h2>Abandoned children</h2>

Officially called The Orphan's Care Centre, Mygoma, the orphanage is housed in a three-storey building in central Khartoum. It is close to the fighting. Bullets have rained down on the building, staff and volunteers say. Babies in the first days slept on the floors away from the windows, one doctor said.

Established in 1961, Mygoma typically receives hundreds of babies a year, according to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, which has provided support. Having a child outside of marriage bears a stigma in predominantly Muslim Sudan.

Even before the conflict, Mygoma struggled. It was home to around 400 children under the age of five, many of them babies. The orphans live in cramped quarters: There are an average of about 25 children per room, and babies often lie two or three to a crib, according to the orphanage official and MSF nurses who worked at Mygoma last year. Children often arrive in poor health, they said.

The orphanage has experienced spikes in deaths over the years. It has been haunted by hygiene problems, underpaid workers, staffing shortages, and a lack of funding for hospital treatment, according to the MSF.

Mygoma’s mortality rate reached about 75 per cent&nbsp;in 2003, according to MSF, which stepped in to help the orphanage that year. In 2007, authorities told Reuters that 77 children died at Mygoma that September, which a charity working with the orphanage at the time attributed to a large intake of babies in a weakened state.

MSF says it intervened to assist again from 2021 through 2022, after the average death toll reached about 12 a month, providing extra financial support to pay caregivers and to refer sick children to hospitals. The toll fell by about half during that time, according to MSF.

When the war broke out, most orphanage workers stayed home. Mygoma was so understaffed that there were only about 20 nannies for the roughly 400 children, according to Doaa Ibrahim, a doctor at the orphanage. That’s a ratio of one to 20. Normally, the ratio is about one to five, she and others said.

“I worked as a nanny, nurse, and a doctor, feeding one baby, giving antibiotics to some, changing diapers for others,” Dr Ibrahim said. She said when she was able to take a rest, she didn’t know “how many I would find dead when I woke up.”

Ibrahim said she soon collapsed of exhaustion and fever and had to leave Mygoma four days into the war. She added: “God forgive us if we didn’t do our best.”

<h2>'Losing babies daily'</h2>

Adding to the strain, the orphanage took on more children. In the first week of the war, two care centres sent dozens of older girls and boys to Mygoma, and hospitals returned about 10 babies who had been sent out for treatment by the orphanage’s medical staff, according to Dr Abdullah.

Abdullah Adam, a surgeon, volunteered at the orphanage during the first five weeks of the war. In the first week, Dr Adam launched an online appeal for people to come help feed the babies. Some volunteers responded, but none were paediatricians, he said.

As long as the fighting continues, supplies will be short and staff will have trouble returning for fear of getting caught in crossfire, said Adam. As he spoke to Reuters on May 10, he held out the phone to capture the sound of shelling.

“All of Khartoum is a military zone and no one dares to move,” he said.

The infants remain without enough carers, in soiled diapers, leaving them susceptible to skin rashes, infections, and fever, the orphanage official and Dr Ibrahim said. Compounding the stress on the children is Khartoum’s brutal heat, which has at times reached about 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) this month.

“We are losing babies daily,” reads a May 16 Facebook post by Hadhreen, a non-governmental organisation that is helping collect donations for Mygoma to pay for workers and supplies. “Between 6 and 18 months old. Same symptoms. High fever. After four hours, innocent souls go to God who is more generous than any of us.”

In a room near the orphanage’s gates, the small bodies of the dead are washed and wrapped in white cloth, said the orphanage official and Dr Ibrahim.

Even after death, the war stalks the children. Orphans used to be buried in a cemetery to the west of Mygoma but it became too dangerous to travel there, according to Marine Alneel, who has been volunteering at Mygoma in recent weeks. Staff started using another burial place, to the northeast, according to the orphanage official.

Getting the bodies there has now also become dangerous, said Dr Abdullah, speaking by phone on Thursday. She said that a day earlier, two babies who died were instead buried in a city square close to the orphanage. So were six civilians killed in shelling nearby, the doctor added.

“It’s getting very bad here,” she said.

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In the days after war erupted in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah rushed between rooms at Sudan’s largest orphanage, trying to care for hundreds of babies and toddlers as the fighting kept all but a handful of staff away.

In the days after war erupted in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah rushed between rooms at Sudan’s largest orphanage, trying to care for hundreds of babies and toddlers as the fighting kept all but a handful of staff away. Children’s cries rang through the sprawling building as heavy gunfire rocked the surroundings, she said. Then came waves of deaths. There were the infants housed on the upper floors of the state-run orphanage, known as Mygoma. Without enough staff to care for them, they succumbed to severe malnutrition and dehydration, the doctor said. And there were the already-fragile newborns in her medical clinic on the ground floor, some of whom died after developing a high fever, she said. “They needed to be fed every three hours. There was no one there,” said Abdullah, speaking by phone from the orphanage, the cries of wailing babies audible in the background. “We tried to give intravenous therapy but most of the time we couldn’t rescue the children.” The daily deaths ticked up to two, three, four and higher, Abdullah said. At least 50 children - at least two dozen of them babies - have died at the orphanage in the six weeks since the war broke out in mid-April, according to Abdullah. That includes at least 13 babies who died on Friday, May 26, she said. A senior orphanage official confirmed those figures and a surgeon who has volunteered at the facility during the war said there had been at least several dozen deaths of orphans. Both said the deaths were mostly of newborns and others under a year old. All three cited malnourishment, dehydration and infections as the main causes. There were further deaths over this past weekend. Reuters reviewed seven death certificates dated Saturday or Sunday that were shared by Heba Abdullah, an orphan-turned-carer. All cited circulatory failure as the cause of death and all but one also listed fever, malnutrition, or sepsis as contributing causes. The scenes of babies lying dead in their cribs have been “terrifying,” Abdullah said. “It is very painful.” Reuters spoke to eight other people who have either visited the orphanage since the war began or have been in touch with other visitors. All said conditions have deteriorated badly and deaths have spiked. Among them is Siddig Frini, general manager of Khartoum state’s Ministry of social development, which oversees care centres, including budget, staffing and supplies. He acknowledged a rise in deaths at Mygoma, attributing it mainly to staff shortages and recurrent power outages caused by the fighting. Without working ceiling fans and air conditioning, rooms turn stiflingly hot in Khartoum’s baking May weather, and the lack of power makes sterilising equipment difficult. Frini and the director of the orphanage, Zeinab Jouda, referred questions about the total death toll to Abdullah, Mygoma’s medical chief. Jouda said she was aware of more than 40 deaths, telling Reuters the fighting kept the carers - known as nannies - and other staff away in the early days of the war. As of Friday, May 26, she said that there are ongoing discussions about evacuating orphans out of Khartoum. Mohammed Abdel Rahman, director of emergency operations at Sudan’s health ministry, said a team is investigating what is happening at Mygoma and will release the results once done. The area remains dangerous. Late last week, airstrikes and artillery slammed the district where Mygoma is located, according to Abdullah the doctor and two others. Following an explosion at a neighbouring building, babies had to be evacuated from one of the orphanage's rooms, said carer Heba Abdullah. Invisible victims of a larger war Mygoma’s dead babies are among the invisible victims of the war in Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country by area. The fighting has killed more than 700 people, injured thousands of others and displaced at least 1.3 million people within Sudan or neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations. The real death toll is likely to be higher. Many of the health and government offices that would track fatalities in Khartoum, where fighting has been heaviest, have ceased to function. Sudan's health ministry has separately recorded hundreds of deaths in the city of El Geneina in the Darfur region, where violence also has flared. War erupted in Khartoum on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The two had been preparing to sign on to a new political transition to elections under a civilian government. Together they had toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup. On May 20, the two sides signed a seven-day ceasefire agreement to allow the delivery of humanitarian relief. The accord brought some respite from heavy fighting in the Sudanese capital but little increase in aid. Representatives for the army and RSF didn’t respond to requests for comment. Sudan, with a population of about 49 million, is among the poorest countries in the world. The fighting has hammered its already stretched healthcare and other infrastructure, including hospitals and airports. Nearly 16 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance before the war began. That figure has now jumped to 25 million, according to the United Nations. More than two-thirds of hospitals in combat areas are out of service, according to the World Health Organization. Emad Abdel Moneim, general manager of al-Dayat, Sudan’s largest maternity hospital, said hospital staff had to relocate in late April because of the war. He said staff moved a large number of patients but had to leave some behind: those on ventilators and in incubators. Evacuating them would have required well-equipped ambulances, which were unavailable. He said around nine babies died, in addition to an unspecified number of adults in the intensive care unit. Two other sources confirmed some patients were left behind, but said they had no information about deaths. When asked about the deaths at the maternity hospital, Abdel Rahman, the national health ministry official, said he was unaware of any, and that he doubted patients were left behind and declined to elaborate further. Underscoring the health fallout on Sudanese of all ages, there have also been deaths at a care centre for the elderly in Khartoum, according to care worker Radwan Ali Nouri. He said five of the elderly residents of the al-Daw Hajoj centre have died due to hunger and lack of care. Nouri shared one photograph of what he said was the covered body of a resident who had died that morning. Frini, the Khartoum state social development official, said the deaths reported at the elder care centre are within the “normal rate” and denied that any residents have died of hunger. The number of people dying in the violence is a fraction of those succumbing to illnesses, said Attia Abdullah, secretary general of the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate, a doctors’ union. “The health situation is deteriorating every day,” he said. Abandoned children Officially called The Orphan's Care Centre, Mygoma, the orphanage is housed in a three-storey building in central Khartoum. It is close to the fighting. Bullets have rained down on the building, staff and volunteers say. Babies in the first days slept on the floors away from the windows, one doctor said. Established in 1961, Mygoma typically receives hundreds of babies a year, according to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, which has provided support. Having a child outside of marriage bears a stigma in predominantly Muslim Sudan. Even before the conflict, Mygoma struggled. It was home to around 400 children under the age of five, many of them babies. The orphans live in cramped quarters: There are an average of about 25 children per room, and babies often lie two or three to a crib, according to the orphanage official and MSF nurses who worked at Mygoma last year. Children often arrive in poor health, they said. The orphanage has experienced spikes in deaths over the years. It has been haunted by hygiene problems, underpaid workers, staffing shortages, and a lack of funding for hospital treatment, according to the MSF. Mygoma’s mortality rate reached about 75 per cent in 2003, according to MSF, which stepped in to help the orphanage that year. In 2007, authorities told Reuters that 77 children died at Mygoma that September, which a charity working with the orphanage at the time attributed to a large intake of babies in a weakened state. MSF says it intervened to assist again from 2021 through 2022, after the average death toll reached about 12 a month, providing extra financial support to pay caregivers and to refer sick children to hospitals. The toll fell by about half during that time, according to MSF. When the war broke out, most orphanage workers stayed home. Mygoma was so understaffed that there were only about 20 nannies for the roughly 400 children, according to Doaa Ibrahim, a doctor at the orphanage. That’s a ratio of one to 20. Normally, the ratio is about one to five, she and others said. “I worked as a nanny, nurse, and a doctor, feeding one baby, giving antibiotics to some, changing diapers for others,” Dr Ibrahim said. She said when she was able to take a rest, she didn’t know “how many I would find dead when I woke up.” Ibrahim said she soon collapsed of exhaustion and fever and had to leave Mygoma four days into the war. She added: “God forgive us if we didn’t do our best.” 'Losing babies daily' Adding to the strain, the orphanage took on more children. In the first week of the war, two care centres sent dozens of older girls and boys to Mygoma, and hospitals returned about 10 babies who had been sent out for treatment by the orphanage’s medical staff, according to Dr Abdullah. Abdullah Adam, a surgeon, volunteered at the orphanage during the first five weeks of the war. In the first week, Dr Adam launched an online appeal for people to come help feed the babies. Some volunteers responded, but none were paediatricians, he said. As long as the fighting continues, supplies will be short and staff will have trouble returning for fear of getting caught in crossfire, said Adam. As he spoke to Reuters on May 10, he held out the phone to capture the sound of shelling. “All of Khartoum is a military zone and no one dares to move,” he said. The infants remain without enough carers, in soiled diapers, leaving them susceptible to skin rashes, infections, and fever, the orphanage official and Dr Ibrahim said. Compounding the stress on the children is Khartoum’s brutal heat, which has at times reached about 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) this month. “We are losing babies daily,” reads a May 16 Facebook post by Hadhreen, a non-governmental organisation that is helping collect donations for Mygoma to pay for workers and supplies. “Between 6 and 18 months old. Same symptoms. High fever. After four hours, innocent souls go to God who is more generous than any of us.” In a room near the orphanage’s gates, the small bodies of the dead are washed and wrapped in white cloth, said the orphanage official and Dr Ibrahim. Even after death, the war stalks the children. Orphans used to be buried in a cemetery to the west of Mygoma but it became too dangerous to travel there, according to Marine Alneel, who has been volunteering at Mygoma in recent weeks. Staff started using another burial place, to the northeast, according to the orphanage official. Getting the bodies there has now also become dangerous, said Dr Abdullah, speaking by phone on Thursday. She said that a day earlier, two babies who died were instead buried in a city square close to the orphanage. So were six civilians killed in shelling nearby, the doctor added. “It’s getting very bad here,” she said. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. 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Dozens of babies die in orphanage as Sudan war takes grim toll on Khartoum: Report