Despite the dribble of aid supplies, doctors fight to resuscitate the famished in Sudan

Thin moms rest beside even thinner toddlers with wide, sunken eyes in a nutrition unit at a hospital in the war-torn capital of Sudan.

After almost two years of fighting that has confined people and shut off supplies, the patients at Alban Jadeed Hospital are in dire need of assistance, but doctors are forced to limit the amount of therapeutic milk and other goods that are used to treat them.

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According to the UN, the conflict that began in April 2023 as a power struggle between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan’s army has resulted in the most and most catastrophic humanitarian crisis in history.

Famine has spread to at least five regions, including parts of western Sudan’s North Darfur State, and about half of the country’s 50 million people currently experience some form of acute hunger.

According to medical professionals and humanitarian workers, the actual situation may be worse because fighting has hindered accurate data collecting in many regions.

The fighting factions in Sudan’s greater capital, where the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Bahri are separated by the Nile, have obstructed relief and commercial supply delivery, driving up the cost of products beyond the means of the majority of people.

More than 14,000 children under five who suffered from severe acute malnutrition and another 12,000 who had a lesser form were admitted to Alban Jadeed Hospital in Bahri’s Sharg Elnil area last year, according to Azza Babiker, head of the therapeutic nutrition department.

According to her, only 600 of the kids who were checked had normal weights.

Babiker claimed that because RSF soldiers had twice stolen the supplies, the therapeutic formula milk supply provided by the U.N. children’s organization UNICEF and the medical relief organization MSF is insufficient.

Both sides deny obstructing the delivery of help.

According to charity workers, the drastic cutback in USAID funding is likely to worsen the situation by affecting the budgets of organizations that supply essential nutritional supplies and community kitchens that many rely on.

As part of its recent victories in the capital, the army recently took Sharg Elnil from the RSF.

Vegetables and fruits have become very limited. “Aside from the difficulty of getting these products in, not all families can afford to buy them,” Babiker stated.

According to Raneen Adel, a physician at Alban Jadeed, many moms are unable to produce milk, frequently as a result of their own malnourishment or stress from RSF attacks.

“There are cases who come in dehydrated … because for example the RSF entered the house and the mother was frightened so she stopped producing breast milk, or she was beaten,” she stated.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by the RSF.

Blood poisoning and other ailments have been caused by poor nutrition and hygiene, but the hospital is also devoid of antibiotics.

“We had to tell the patients’ companions to get (the drugs) from outside, but they can’t afford to buy them,” Adel stated.