Mayo Paediatric Centre Re-Opens to 70+ Children per Day

After more than two and a half years, EMERGENCY’s Paediatric Centre in Mayo, Sudan, is open again.

The facility closed in April 2023 after the outbreak of war due to a lack of security for staff and patients. In the first few days after reopening, an average of 70-90 children have been received per day. Many children were malnourished, embodying the consequences of war.

“When the war began in Sudan in April 2023, the Mayo refugee camp, 20 kilometres from Khartoum and home to hundreds of thousands of people, was hit hard by attacks that made it unsafe for us to continue our work,” explains Matteo D’Alonzo, EMERGENCY’s Country Director in Sudan. “Despite the closure of our Mayo facility, we have managed to continue providing care for paediatric patients by opening a Paediatric Clinic within the same complex as the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum’s Soba neighbourhood, which continues to see around 70 patients per day. But now that the situation is calmer, we are happy to be able to provide care for children in a location closer to their homes. In the first few days after opening, we received over 200 children, a sign that further intervention was essential for the paediatric population, which was among the worst affected by the conflict.”

The Mayo Paediatric Centre currently employs five nurses, a paediatrician, a medical officer, two laboratory technicians, two pharmacists and four cleaners, some of whom worked at the facility before it closed in 2023. At full capacity, the Mayo Paediatric Centre will provide free care for children up to 14 years of age, an ante-natal care and malnutrition screening programme, a vaccination programme, and obstetric activities for women, including pregnancy monitoring and family planning services. Cases requiring hospitalisation will be referred to the Paediatric Clinic within the Salam Centre, which has an in-patient ward that can accommodate up to 16.

“Of the more than 200 children seen in recent days, a quarter were in a severe condition and had to be kept under observation,” says Denu Fedaku, EMERGENCY paediatrician in Mayo. “The most common diagnoses include acute malnutrition, respiratory diseases, sickle cell anaemia and malaria. Among the first young patients was a six-year-old boy who was severely malnourished and suspected of having tuberculosis. We are also seeing malnourished mothers: what little food they have, when there is any, they give to their children.”

According to the latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), on the 1-5 scale, 85% of the Sudanese population is between Phases 2 and 4, with the situation worsening in the Darfur region.

Hunger and malnutrition were already at record levels before the fighting broke out, and now 26 million people – half the population – are facing high levels of acute food insecurity. Sudan remains among the top four countries in the world facing the highest levels of food insecurity, and the top in East Africa, with an estimated 3.7 million children between six months and five years severely malnourished, as well as one million pregnant and lactating women. It is estimated that by the end of 2025, approximately 3.2 million children under five will have suffered from acute malnutrition (UNICEF).

“In the second phase of the opening, in January 2026, we will activate a second clinic, sexual and reproductive health services, and a clinical nutrition programme for children under 5,” concludes D’Alonzo. “There are many needs, and we are ready to gradually reactivate all activities to return to full capacity, with the difference being that the population of Mayo has increased significantly. We must thank our Sudanese colleagues who have made this reopening possible and who, for more than two and a half years, have allowed us to remain here and continue providing care across the country.“

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EMERGENCY has been present in Sudan since 2004 and has remained in the country throughout the conflict. The NGO currently operates in Khartoum, with the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery as well as a Paediatric Clinic and Ward; in Port Sudan and Nyala, with Paediatric Centres; and in Atbara, Kassala and Gedaref, with cardiology clinics.