Khartoum hospital sees growing number of child victims of Sudan war

Children make up a large and increasing proportion of the victims of conflict in Sudan, a global medical charity has warned, with one in six patients being treated for war-related injuries at one Khartoum hospital being aged under 15.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which supports the Bashair Teaching Hospital in southern Khartoum, said that 16 percent of the 4,214 people it has treated since January are from this age bracket.

MSF surgeons have treated a total of 314 children for trauma wounds, including blast and shrapnel injuries, with another 201 suffering gunshot wounds.

Some of the victims are babies whose X-rays showed shrapnel wounds to the head and bullet wounds to the body.

MSF's Dr Moeen, who used an assume name to protect their identity, works as a medical team leader at the hospital and said such cases among children were common, while medics are seeing mass casualty events as fighting continues to rage in the Sudanese capital.

In late September this year, the Sudanese armed forces launched an offensive against its rival the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with intense fighting in Khartoum City and its outskirts since the conflict broke out in April 2023.

In addition to war wounds, MSF noted that many arrivals to the hospital were showing the effects of malnutrition with 1,500 women and children screened at the hospital between 19 October and 8 November being severely or acutely malnourished and 400 suffering from moderate malnourishment.

"These figures of violence and malnutrition show the nightmare people, including children, are experiencing in Khartoum," MSF Emergency Coordinator Claire San Filippo said.

MSF’s report from south Khartoum comes after a new study by researchers in the UK and Sudan estimated that 61,000 people have died in Khartoum state during the first 14 months of war in the country.

This includes 26,000 people who suffered violent deaths. The UN had previously estimated only 20,000 deaths across the whole of Sudan.

AT the UN on Monday, Russia vetoed a ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council that had been introduced by the UK and Sierra Leon.

The proposal would have called on both sides to enact an immediate cessation of hostilities and begin negotiations for a nationwide ceasefire.

Some 11 million people have been displaced by the nationwide violence, including 3.1 million who have fled the country.