Médecins Sans Frontières was forced to stop providing essential support in Wad Madani due to obstructions and harassment

On January 13, we were able to send a team back to Wad Madani, where several hundred thousand people remained, once one of the most populous cities in Sudan.

Since then, our teams have been supporting the emergency department, operating room, maternity ward, inpatient department – including pediatrics, therapeutic nutrition center and adult and surgical wards – and pharmacy at Madani Teaching Hospital.

We also provided mental health support and sexual violence care. We also receive training, salary incentives for 240 Ministry of Health (MoH) staff and food for patients.

Between mid-January and the end of April, MSF conducted almost 10,000 outpatient consultations – malaria was the most common disease treated -, 2,142 antenatal consultations and cared for 16 survivors of sexual violence. During this period there was a constant flow of patients to the emergency department, with a total of 2,981 patients admitted. A significant number of these admissions involved physical injuries resulting from the ongoing violence.

MSF has now stopped all support to the facility and we have relocated our staff to safer areas in Sudan. Over the last three months, our team and supported Ministry of Health staff have repeatedly faced security incidents either carried out or tolerated by the RSF, including looting of the hospital, stolen vehicles and arrest of staff, among numerous other incidents.