Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart
Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart/node/2583464/middle-east
Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart
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Women with children wait for medical care at the Italian Paediatric Hospital in Port Sudan on October 8, 2024. (AFP)
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A Sudanese doctor performs a medical check on a patient at a hospital in Tokar in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan on October 10, 2024. (AFP)
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A Sudanese man receives a medical check-up in Tokar in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Sudanese wait outside a hospital for medical check-up in Tokar in the Red Sea State following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan on October 10, 2024. (AFP)
Sudan’s doctors bear brunt of war as healthcare falls apart
The violence has turned the country's hospitals into battlegrounds, placing health workers like Moussa on the frontlines
Updated 18 December 2024
AFP
CAIRO, Egypt: Sudanese doctor Mohamed Moussa has grown so accustomed to the constant sound of gunfire and shelling near his hospital that it no longer startles him. Instead, he simply continues attending to his patients.
"The bombing has numbed us," the 30-year-old general practitioner told AFP by phone from Al-Nao hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.
Gunfire rattles in the distance, warplanes roar overhead and nearby shelling makes the ground tremble, more than a year and a half into a grinding war between rival Sudanese generals.
Embattled health workers "have no choice but to continue", said Moussa.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 12 million people, creating what the International Rescue Committee aid group has called the "biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded".
The violence has turned the country's hospitals into battlegrounds, placing health workers like Moussa on the frontlines.
Inside Al-Nao's overwhelmed wards, the conflict's toll is staggering.
Doctors say they tend to a harrowing array of injuries: gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, severe burns, shattered bones and amputations -- even among children as young as four months.
The hospital itself has not been spared.
Deadly shelling has repeatedly hit its premises, according to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which has supported the Al-Nao hospital.
Elsewhere, the situation is just as dire. In North Darfur, a recent drone attack killed nine at the state capital's main hospital, while shelling forced MSF to evacuate its field hospital in a famine-hit refugee camp.
Sudan's healthcare system, already struggling before the war, has now all but crumbled.
Of the 87 hospitals in Khartoum state, nearly half suffered visible damage between the start of the war and August 26 this year, according to satellite imagery provided and analysed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab and the Sudanese American Physicians Association.
As of October, the World Health Organization had documented 119 confirmed attacks on healthcare facilities across Sudan.
"There is a complete disregard for civilian protection," said Kyle McNally, MSF's humanitarian affairs advisor.
He told AFP that an ongoing "broad-spectrum attack on healthcare" includes "widespread physical destruction, which then reduces services to the floor -- literally and figuratively".
The national doctors' union estimates that in conflict zones across Sudan, up to 90 percent of medical facilities have been forced shut, leaving millions without access to essential care.
Both sides of the conflict have been implicated in attacks on healthcare facilities.
The medical union said that 78 health workers have been killed since the war began, by gunfire or shelling at their workplaces or homes.
"Both sides believe that medical staff are cooperating with the opposing faction, which leads to their targeting," union spokesperson Sayed Mohamed Abdullah told AFP.
"There is no justification for targeting hospitals or medical personnel. Doctors... make no distinction between one patient and another."
According to the doctors' union, the RSF has raided hospitals to treat their wounded or search for enemies, while the army has conducted air strikes on medical facilities across the country.
On November 11, MSF suspended most activities at Bashair Hospital, one of South Khartoum's few functioning hospitals, after fighters stormed the facility and shot dead another fighter being treated there.
MSF officials say they believe the fighters to be RSF combatants.
In addition to the endless stream of war casualties, Sudan's doctors scramble to respond to another threat: mass starvation.
In a paediatric hospital in Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, malnourished children arrive in droves.
Between mid-August and late October, the small hospital was receiving up to 40 children a day, many in critical condition, according to one doctor.
"Every day, three or four of them would die because their cases were very late stage and complicated, or due to a shortage of essential medicines," said the physician, requesting anonymity for safety concerns.
Sudan has for months teetered on the edge of famine, with nearly 26 million people -- more than half the population -- facing acute hunger, according to the UN.
Adnan Hezam, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said there must be "immediate support in terms of supplies and human resources to medical facilities".
Without it, "we fear a rapid deterioration" in already limited services, he told AFP.
To Moussa, the doctor, some days feel "unbearable".
"But we can't stop," he said.
"We owe it to the people who depend on us."
Syrians rejoice during first Eid after Assad’s fall
“The joy of liberation and victory is immense, but there’s still a lot of work ahead. This is only the beginning of the road”
Updated 7 sec ago
AFP
DAMASCUS: Eid Al-Fitr in Syria was charged with newfound joy this year, as thousands freely celebrated the holiday for the first time after the fall of Bashar Assad.
From the early morning hours, crowds of men, women and children flocked to pray at Damascus’s historic Umayyad Mosque in the Old City.
“This is the first time we truly feel the joy of Eid, after getting rid of Assad’s tyrannical regime,” Fatima Othman told AFP.
Following prayer, worshippers exchanged Eid greetings while street vendors sold colorful balloons and toys to children posing for photos with their parents.
“Our celebration is doubled after Assad’s fall,” said Ghassan Youssef, a resident of the capital.
A few kilometers (miles) away, on the slopes of Mount Qasyun overlooking Damascus — a site previously off-limits to Syrians until Assad was deposed on December 8 — a few thousand people gathered at Unknown Soldier Square for an open-air prayer.
Among them were members of the security forces and the army, dressed in uniform and armed. The road leading to the square was packed, according to an AFP photographer.
Some worshippers distributed sweets to celebrate, while the three-star Syrian flag, adopted by the new authorities, waved in the air.
Under the previous government, access to the Unknown Soldier monument was typically restricted to Assad and his close associates, who would lay wreaths there during national ceremonies.
The memorial, where a giant screen broadcast the Eid prayer, is near the presidential palace.
There, interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa prayed alongside Syria’s new mufti Osama Al-Rifai and several cabinet ministers in the presence of a large crowd.
He later delivered a speech emphasising the country faced “a long and arduous road to reconstruction but possesses all the resources needed to recover.”
This came two days after the formation of a new government, which faces daunting challenges in a country devastated by 14 years of civil war.
Wael Hamamiya, who had been in Sweden since the early days of the conflict, returned to Damascus to celebrate Eid with his family.
“This is my first Eid here in nearly 15 years. I truly feel the celebration in its full meaning,” he told AFP, beaming.
“Everyone who has come is over the moon. This is the celebration of celebrations!“
The occasion was more somber for some Syrians, who were able to visit the graves of loved ones that had been off-limits during Assad reign, especially in former opposition strongholds.
At Al-Rawda Cafe in Damascus, 36-year-old Amer Hallaq chatted with friends after returning from exile in Berlin where he ended up after dodging compulsory military service in 2014.
“For years, I thought I’d never see my family again or celebrate Eid with them,” Hallaq said.
“The joy of liberation and victory is immense, but there’s still a lot of work ahead. This is only the beginning of the road.”
Israeli finance minister Smotrich resigns from post as minister in government
Updated 31 March 2025
Reuters
JERUSALEM: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich resigned from his post as minister on Monday in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A spokesperson for Smotrich said the move was a protest against nationalist-religious Jewish Power party head Itamar Ben Gvir’s request for more ministerial positions upon Ben Gvir’s return to the government.
The resignation is not likely to collapse Netanyahu’s coalition. The government passed its 2025 budget in Israel’s parliament last week.
At least 10 people dead in Syria as gunmen target civilians in Tartus and Homs
Attackers, who remain unidentified and at large, opened fire in Haref Nemra, a village in the Baniyas countryside in Tartus
In early March, Islamist-led forces killed over 1,000 Alawites in coordinated assaults on coastal areas including Latakia and Baniyas
Updated 31 March 2025
AP
BEIRUT: A 12-year-old boy was among four people killed on Monday in Syria’s Tartus province, a coastal region home to a majority Alawite population, provincial officials said in a statement.
The attackers, who remain unidentified and at large, opened fire in Haref Nemra, a village in the Baniyas countryside in Tartus. The Tartus province’s general security forces are pursuing those involved “to bring them to justice,” said Amer Al-Madani, Baniyas’ head of security, who spoke in a video posted on the province’s official Facebook page.
Kamal, a resident of a nearby village and a relative of three victims who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of reprisals, said the masked gunmen, whom he believed to be government security forces, arrived at the village seeking the mukhtar, a local leader who represents the community in administrative matters, before opening fire, killing at least four people, including a 12-year-old and an 80-year-old from the same family.
Kamal said he was citing accounts from three other witnesses. The sequence of events has not been independently verified, and there is no official statement on the details of the attack.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is the Islamist group whose leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, played a key role in the overthrow of former President Bashar Assad and is now Syria’s de facto president.
The attack forced dozens of families to flee from the Baniyas area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor. Kamal also said many in Baniyas escaped to nearby mountains. “No one here feels safe,” he said. “All main roads are empty most times because people are scared to go outside.”
Separately on Monday, two unidentified gunmen killed six people in Homs, a city in western Syria known for its religious diversity, with a majority of Sunni Muslims and a significant Alawite minority, a sect of Shia Islam primarily based in Syria.
The attack took place in the Karm Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, claiming the lives of three children and their mother, who all belonged to the Alawite sect, as well as two house guests from the Sunni community. The attack also left the father seriously wounded. There has been no official comment on the incident from the government or relevant authorities.
Syria’s Alawite community in Syria has faced escalating violence, with reports of massacres and targeted attacks.
In early March, Islamist-led forces killed over 1,000 Alawites in coordinated assaults on coastal areas including Latakia and Baniyas, carrying out executions and burning homes, leading to mass displacements.
The attacks, among the deadliest in Syria’s modern history, saw militants rampage through Alawite-populated coastal provinces and nearby Hama and Homs, killing civilians— including entire families— in homes and on the streets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported nearly 200 deaths in Baniyas alone.
Witnesses identified the attackers as hard-line Sunni Islamists, including Syria-based foreign fighters and former members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the disbanded insurgent group that led the December Assad ousting. However, many were also local Sunnis, seeking revenge for past atrocities blamed on Alawites loyal to Assad.
While some Sunnis hold the Alawite community responsible for Assad’s brutal crackdowns, Alawites themselves say they also suffered under his rule. The international community has urged Syria’s new government to protect minorities and prevent further violence.
US says new Syria government ‘positive step’ but too early for sanctions relief
Updated 31 March 2025
AFP
WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday called the formation of a new Syrian government a positive step, but said it would not ease sanctions until it has verified progress on priorities including acting against “terrorism.”
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Saturday named a new government that is mostly Sunni Muslim, a sharp change following the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, a member of the Alawite minority.
“We recognize the struggles of the Syrian people who have suffered decades under despotic rule and oppression of the Assad regime, and we hope this announcement represents a positive step for an inclusive and representative Syria,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
“However, Syria’s interim authorities should fully renounce and suppress terrorism, exclude foreign terrorist fighters from any official roles (and) prevent Iran and its proxies from exploiting Syrian territory,” Bruce said.
She also called on the interim authorities to “take meaningful steps to verifiably destroy Assad’s chemical weapons, assist in the recovery of US and other citizens who have been disappeared in Syria, and ensure the security and freedoms of Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities.”
On sanctions, “any adjustment to US policy toward Syria’s interim authorities will be contingent on all of those steps being taken,” she said.
The European Union has spoken of moving toward easing some Syria sanctions, while Britain and Canada have already lifted some measures.
Can Lebanon’s new central bank governor break the cycle of economic crisis?
Lebanon appointed Karim Souaid as its central bank governor after a two-year vacancy, which in itself was a breakthrough
The new Banque du Liban chief inherits a crumbling economy in a nation beset with political rivalries and blighted by conflict
Updated 31 March 2025
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: As Lebanon faces up to its broken finances, neglected infrastructure and postwar reconstruction, the appointment of Karim Souaid as the new central bank governor marks an important step toward economic recovery.
On March 27, after weeks of government wrangling, 17 of the cabinet’s 24 ministers voted to name asset manager Souaid as governor of Banque du Liban, the country’s National News Agency reported.
Souaid replaces interim governor Wassim Mansouri, who led the central bank after Riad Salameh’s controversial 30-year tenure ended in 2023 — almost a year before his arrest on embezzlement, money laundering and fraud charges tied to financial commissions.
The choice of candidate was critical for both domestic and international stakeholders, as the role is key to enacting the financial reforms required by donors, including the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for a bailout.
Souaid’s appointment comes with high expectations. His priorities include restarting talks with the IMF, negotiating sovereign debt restructuring and rebuilding foreign exchange reserves.
Nafez Zouk, a sovereign analyst at Aviva Investors, told Arab News that the new central bank chief “needs to be able to demonstrate some commitment to the IMF’s approach for restructuring the banking sector.”
Karim Souaid was appointed as the new central bank governor. (Supplied)
Souaid brings extensive experience in privatization, banking regulations and structuring large-scale economic transitions. He is also the founder and managing partner of the Bahrain-based private investment firm Growthgate Equity Partners.
However, his success as central bank chief will depend on international support, as Western nations and financial institutions have linked aid to sweeping economic reforms, including banking sector restructuring.
Last year, the EU pledged €1 billion ($1.08 billion) to help Lebanon curb refugee flows to Europe. Half was paid in August, while the rest is contingent on “some conditions,” EU Commissioner Dubravka Suica said during a February visit.
“The main precondition is the restructure of the banking sector ... and a good agreement with the International Monetary Fund,” she said after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
However, critics have raised concerns about Souaid’s ties to Lebanon’s financial elite and members of the entrenched ruling class, fearing that his policies might favor the banking sector over broader economic reform, local media reported.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has also expressed reservations about Souaid’s appointment, saying the central bank chief “must adhere, from today, to the financial policy of our reformist government… on negotiating a new program with the IMF, restructuring the banks and presenting a comprehensive plan” to preserve depositors’ rights.
An excavator removes wreckage at site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Tibnit. (AFP)
Before Souaid’s appointment, Aoun and Salam were unable to reach a consensus on a candidate, according to local media reports. The president therefore insisted on putting the matter to a Cabinet vote.
Echoing the prime minister’s apprehensions is Nasser Saidi, a former Lebanese economy minister and central bank vice governor, who raised concerns about the selection process for the new central bank chief, warning that powerful interest groups may have too much influence.
He told the Financial Times that the decision carried serious consequences for Lebanon’s economic future, saying that one of Souaid’s biggest challenges will be convincing the world to trust the nation’s banking system enough to risk investing in its recovery.
“The stakes are too high: You cannot have the same people responsible for the biggest crisis Lebanon has ever been through also trying to restructure the banking sector,” said Saidi, who served as first vice governor of the Banque du Liban for two consecutive terms.
“How are we going to convince the rest of the world that it can trust Lebanon’s banking system, and provide the country with the funding it needs to rebuild (after the war)?”
The World Bank ranks the economic collapse among the worst globally since the mid-19th century. (AFP/File)
Last month, the IMF welcomed Lebanon’s request for support in tackling its protracted economic crisis. In February, after meeting with the newly appointed finance minister, Yassine Jaber, the international lender showed openness to a new loan agreement.
Lebanon’s economy has been in a state of turmoil since it suffered a financial crash in late 2019, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut port blast of August 2020 and the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
The national currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value and food prices have soared almost tenfold since May 2019. Citizens have struggled to access their savings since banks imposed strict withdrawal limits, effectively trapping deposits.
Lebanon’s prolonged crisis, triggered by widespread corruption and excessive spending by the ruling elite, has driven the country from upper-middle-income to lower-middle-income status, with gross domestic product per capita falling 36.5 percent from 2019 to 2021.
The World Bank ranks the economic collapse among the worst globally since the mid-19th century.
The Israel-Hezbollah war, which began Oct. 8, 2023, and concluded with a fragile ceasefire in November 2024, is estimated to have caused $3.4 billion in damage to Lebanese infrastructure, with economic losses of up to $5.1 billion.
Combined, these figures total 40 percent of Lebanon’s GDP.
The IMF has outlined key conditions for government action. These include addressing weak governance and implementing a fiscal strategy that combines debt restructuring with reforms to restore credibility, predictability and transparency in the fiscal framework.
It has also urged Lebanon to pursue a comprehensive financial sector restructuring, acknowledge losses at private banks and the central bank, and protect smaller depositors. Additionally, it calls for the establishment of a credible monetary and exchange rate system.
Lebanese economist Saidi said that the IMF “quite correctly and wisely” demanded comprehensive economic reforms.
INNUMBERS
• 36.5% Lebanon’s GDP per capita contraction from 2019 to 2021.
• $8.5bn Economic and infrastructure cost of Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
In a March 14 interview with BBC’s “World Business Report,” he said that the government must address fiscal and debt sustainability, restructure public debt, and overhaul the banking and financial sector.
But hurdles remain. Saidi added that while Lebanon “has a government today that I think is willing to undertake reforms, that does not mean that parliament will go along.”
Lebanon also needs political and judicial reform, including an “independent judiciary,” he added.
Nevertheless, Saidi told the BBC that Lebanon, for the first time, has “a team that inspires confidence” and has formed a cabinet that secured parliament’s backing.
Protesters during a rally outside the Palace of Justice in Beirut. (AFP/File)
Despite this positive step, Lebanon must still address structural failures in its public institutions, rooted in decades of opacity, fragmented authority and weak accountability.
Zouk of Aviva Investors believes another big challenge to reforming the financial sector will be “the large resistance from banks and their shareholders.
“Without some degree of accountability and transparency, I struggle to see how the rest of the reform agenda can be implemented,” he said.
There are “several proposals being circulated that would run counter to the IMF and would far from restore credibility and trust to the Lebanese financial sector.”
Saidi highlighted the broader challenges Lebanon faces, cautioning that without financing for reconstruction, achieving socioeconomic and political stability will remain elusive.
“If you don’t have financing for reconstruction, you’re not going to have socioeconomic stability, let alone political stability,” he said.
“There has to be a willingness by all parties to go along with the reforms,” he added, highlighting that this is where external support is crucial, particularly from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, Europe and the US.
Lebanon endured a 14-month Israel-Hezbollah conflict. (AFP/File)
Saidi said that support must go beyond helping bring the new government to power — it must include assistance, especially in terms of security.
In March, Reuters cited five sources saying the US was engaging with Lebanon’s new government on selecting the central bank governor to combat corruption and prevent the Iran-backed Hezbollah from exploiting the banking system for illicit financing.
A US official who met the candidates before Souaid’s appointment told the news agency that the US was making its guidance on candidates’ qualifications clear to the Lebanese government.
“The guidelines are: No Hezbollah and nobody who has been caught up in corruption. This is essential from an economic perspective,” the official said.
The move, according to Reuters, highlights the US administration’s continued focus on weakening Hezbollah. The group has seen its political and military clout diminished by Israel, which decimated its leadership, drained its finances and depleted its once formidable arsenal.
Firas Modad, a Middle East analyst and founder of Modad Geopolitics, told Arab News that he believes US approval was a prerequisite for selecting the next Banque du Liban governor.
“The next governor is irrelevant,” he said a few days before Souaid’s appointment. “He will need to be approved by the Americans, and the Lebanese system will not appoint someone that the Americans do not approve of.”
Washington is pushing Lebanon’s new government to disarm Hezbollah and address longstanding issues with Israel. (AFP/File)
Modad added that Lebanon faces a stark choice: “Normalization with Israel or civil war.” This decision will “determine whether there is a chance to rebuild the financial system and recover some money for the bondholders and smaller depositors.”
On March 22, the Israeli military mounted airstrikes on Lebanon amid renewed violence in Gaza and Yemen. A “second wave” targeted sites in southern and eastern Lebanon, according to the Israeli military.
Israel claimed that the attacks targeted “Hezbollah command centers, infrastructure sites, terrorists, rocket launchers and a weapons storage facility.” It marked the deadliest escalation since the ceasefire in late November.
Washington is pushing Lebanon’s new government to disarm Hezbollah and address longstanding issues with Israel, including border demarcation and the release of Lebanese captives through enhanced diplomatic talks.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, has rejected calls to disarm as long as Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory.
