Sudan: The harrowing reality of giving birth in a war zone
Sudanese women about to give birth are losing their babies and sometimes their own lives because of a lack of specialist healthcare support, amid the ongoing war, UN humanitarians said on Friday. In an alert, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA , highlighted urgent needs among expectant mothers in Golo, in western Sudan’s Central Darfur region. The mountain town has only one hospital capable of performing a C-section and it is the only one for many miles around. “ Most women reach it from mountain villages on foot, often walking for hours or being transported on crude wooden stretchers through the mountains, when they're already in labour or bleeding ,” said Fabrizia Falcione, UNFPA Sudan Country Representative. “Those who can afford it hire a donkey, but many women cannot. Falcione noted, in a call to support mobile clinics closer to vulnerable communities. Now, if it took us by four by four, nine hours [by car], you can imagine how long it will take a woman on a donkey from Golo to Tawila.
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Paramilitary forces in Sudan unleashed “a wave of intense violence…shocking in its scale and brutality” during their final offensive to capture the besieged city of El Fasher last October, committing atrocities that amount to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, according to a report released on Friday by the UN human rights office, OHCHR. More than 6,000 people were killed in the episode, OHCHR noted. The residents are hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Sudan’s ongoing war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which first clashed following a break-down in transition to civilian rule in April 2023. “Women come even from Golo [to Tawila] to get a C-section when they know that their situation is desperate.
