Illness and lack of services will lead to more deaths in Sudan, WHO says

Only 16 per cent of health facilities functioning in Khartoum, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says

Ibrahim Malik Hospital in Khartoum. The WHO has highlighted a severe lack of medical supplies throughout Sudan. Reuters

More deaths are expected in Sudan due to outbreaks of disease and a lack of essential services, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, as intense fighting continues.

“On top of the number of deaths and injuries caused by the conflict itself, the WHO expects there will be many more deaths due to outbreaks, lack of access to food and water and disruption to essential health services, including immunisation,” the organisation's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Dr Tedros said only 16 per cent of health facilities were functioning in the capital Khartoum.

"WHO estimates that one quarter of the lives lost so far could have been saved with access to basic haemorrhage control," he said. "But paramedics, nurses and doctors are unable to access injured civilians, and civilians are unable to access services."

Raging battles between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the past 10 days have killed at least 459 people and injured more than 4,000, the WHO said.

The UN health body was carrying out a risk assessment to determine whether the seizure of a laboratory in Khartoum housing pathogens represented a danger to public health.

"When lab workers are forced to leave a laboratory and untrained people enter that laboratory, there are always risks, but the risks are primarily to those individuals, first and foremost, to accidentally expose themselves to the pathogens," said Mike Ryan, head of WHO's health emergencies programme.

The absence of clean water and vaccines, as well as other sanitation issues, represented the main risk to Sudanese, he added.

Foreigners fleeing Khartoum have described bodies littering streets, buildings on fire, residential areas turned into battlefields and youths carrying large knives roaming neighbourhoods.

Sudanese and citizens of neighbouring countries have been leaving in their droves. More than 10,000 people have crossed into Egypt from Sudan in the past five days, Cairo said, while an estimated 20,000 have entered Chad. Others have fled to South Sudan and Ethiopia, despite difficult conditions in those countries.