While the truce negotiations falter, battles continue in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, amid mutual accusations of committing violations against civilians, without any glimmer of hope for a near end to the war that has been raging since April 15.
Khartoum and its inhabitants sank more in their expanding suffering every day, and death came to add another catastrophe to the pains of life in light of the battles. on the environment and public health.
Risks escalate
Amid rising warnings of a dangerous environmental disaster besetting the Sudanese capital, the Sudan Doctors Syndicate revealed the presence of more than 3,000 corpses in Khartoum, some of which have been partially analyzed in the streets, many of which have not been buried or entered morgues, warning that the continued power outages in medical facilities and the lack of Cadres in it because of the battles will lead to an epidemiological catastrophe at the door, while the Advisory Council of Forensic Medicine in the country warned earlier of the consequences of the accumulation of corpses, which might lead to the spread of plague disease in Khartoum state, stressing that the risks in this regard are growing every day.
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In the context, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for the Environment in the state of Khartoum, Bushra Hamid, warned of the worsening of the situation and its transformation into a real catastrophe in light of the continuation of the war that left morgues without electricity or cadres, so the corpses decomposed and people complained of the foul odors emanating from them, but the most dangerous of all is the spread of Various diseases and epidemics.
Hamid added, “The danger of corpses has become one of the biggest environmental and health challenges facing Khartoum state at the present time, and puts it face to face with the threat of the plague, and this also includes those who carry weapons, and they must know that they are threatened by the situation in the morgues more than the threat of the weapon itself.”
Too late
The environment official points out that despite conducting some first aid treatments for this problem, it remained due to power outages and the accumulation of corpses in a way that far exceeds the capacity of morgues, pointing out that the problem of accumulating corpses is old, but it worsened with the disaster of war.
Hamed expected that this problem would have major health and environmental repercussions, as several morgues in Khartoum state could no longer be reached, and even if this was done, it would be too late to address the matter after the corpses decomposed inside them and turned into a real dilemma.
The Secretary of the Environment called for the necessity of urgent action to address what can be remedied to mitigate the environmental and health effects by transporting the bodies and burying them in the legal and legitimate way while preserving the full data and information related to them, especially since some of them are related to the issue of dispersing the leadership sit-in and other major criminal cases, then the issue of sterilization and cleaning with disinfectants and pesticides. It is one of the hygiene requirements as an urgent matter.
Bishri appealed to both sides of the war to understand this disastrous situation, which will affect them themselves more than others, especially since autumn has begun, and rainwater will carry the remains of dead bodies and the various microbes resulting from them, which will cause epidemics and diseases in a very large way, so the matter now requires (severely) dangerous) the international community intervened urgently to preserve the lives of citizens and the environment.
Laboratory microbes
On the other hand, specialists at the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory in Soba, east of Khartoum, warned of possible catastrophic environmental repercussions as a result of armed men storming the poultry diseases department and emptying refrigerators and freezers of samples collected from cases of various diseases such as bird flu, smallpox, and others.
The specialists noted that “the unloading included more than 25 refrigerators, and the seriousness of the matter is that the isolates are incubators for disease microbes,” warning that repeated encroachment on other sections of the laboratory may lead to the spread of microbes of other diseases, such as anthrax, hemorrhagic fever, tuberculosis and influenza. horses and others.
And the Secretary-General of the Sudanese Veterinary Council, Samir Abdel Rasoul, warned that if these samples are not dealt with in accordance with the requirements and standards for preservation and safety, or health procedures for the disposal of veterinary biological products, this may lead to infection with the disease caused by the microbe, whether it is an animal disease or common between animals and humans.
epidemiological calculations
For its part, the Federal Ministry of Health confirms that it is working with United Nations organizations and international organizations to strengthen response systems to confront epidemics.
Yesterday, Tuesday, an expanded meeting that included the leaders of the Ministry of Health, representatives of the Emergency and Epidemic Control Department, international and United Nations organizations, and a number of specialists discussed the public health situation in the country, the epidemiological situation, how to conduct basic health care services, hospital services, and some diseases recently spread in the states. several cases in Sudan following the emergence of some cases of watery diarrhea in the state of South Kordofan, and measles in a number of states, especially the White Nile state.
The meeting reviewed the treatments and measures taken by the Federal Ministry of Health and international organizations to provide basic aids, directing the need to strengthen disease surveillance mechanisms and respond to current epidemics with international community organizations.
The meeting stressed the need to tighten and raise the level of coordination between the state emergency rooms and the Federal Chamber in order to process incoming reports and standardize information, especially with regard to the provision of medical supplies.
He stressed the urgent need to complete the basic aids of pesticides and inputs for water and food safety, noting that communication will be made with partners from the United Nations and international organizations, in addition to the Ministry of Finance, to fill this gap urgently, appreciating the great and effective role of all medical personnel working in the health sector. under these conditions.
The meeting agreed on the need to involve organizations and fully coordinate with the ministry in order to prepare well to confront expected epidemics, and to direct trained cadres from the field epidemiology program and deputy public health specialists to join emergency rooms and combat epidemics in the various states of Sudan.
neglect and fears
According to observers, the continuation of the war prevented them from examining the current conditions in the morgues and assessing the extent of the damage incurred as a result of the battles, especially in light of the power outages and the stopping of the refrigerators for preserving the corpses. which destroyed many buildings. They fear that the corpses in those morgues have been eaten and gnawed by stray dogs and cats after they were attacked by rats earlier, and that after the war they became no different from those found in the streets.
The representative of the World Health Organization in Sudan, Nima Abed, described the size of the health crisis in the country as enormous, stressing the hard work on the part of the organization to intensify its response and provide critical and emergency medical supplies, despite the continued attacks on health facilities and the insecurity that exacerbates the challenges.
In a statement, the organization warned that the health crisis in Sudan has reached extremely dangerous levels, with more than two-thirds of hospitals still out of service, amid increasing reports of attacks on health facilities.
She explained that she had launched an emergency appeal to collect 145 million US dollars last June, but she had so far only received 10 percent of the required amount, suggesting that the health crisis would worsen further with diminishing chances for peace.
The organization confirmed that, between April 15 and July 24, it had verified 51 attacks on health facilities, which caused the death of 10 people and injured 24 others, as well as cutting access to those in need of health care.
Khartoum includes four large morgues in Omdurman, Al-Akademy, Bashaer and Umbada hospitals, with a capacity to accommodate hundreds of corpses.
Since 2019, a government decision has halted the burial of any corpses, which caused a large accumulation of corpses until the number reached about 3,000, which put great pressure on morgues.
It is likely that some of the corpses that have been in the morgues for about three years belong to the victims of the sit-in dispersal process in front of the Army General Command headquarters in 2019, as well as those who fell during the protests that erupted after the army commander’s coup against the civilian transitional government headed by Abdullah Hamdok in October 2021. , as well as the victims who fell during the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, which has extended so far.
2023-08-02 10:39:29
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