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SUDAN, EMERGENCY: 7 INTERNATIONAL STAFF RETURN TO ITALY. 46 INTERNATIONAL STAFF REMAIN IN KHARTOUM, NYALA AND PORT SUDAN.

Sunday, April 23, 2023

7 INTERNATIONAL STAFF RETURN TO ITALY.
46 INTERNATIONAL STAFF REMAIN IN KHARTOUM, NYALA AND PORT SUDAN.

FRANCO MASINI, MEDICAL COORDINATOR AT SALAM CENTRE FOR CARDIAC SURGERY IN KHARTOUM: “WE CONTINUE OUR ACTIVITIES EVEN IF THEY ARE REDUCED. WE CANNOT LEAVE OUR PATIENTS.”

Seven EMERGENCY workers have chosen to return to Italy with the evacuation convoy organised by the Italian Embassy. Three of them had already planned to return, but had been stranded in the country since the beginning of the fighting. Another 46 international EMERGENCY workers have stayed in Sudan where they will continue their work in EMERGENCY’s healthcare facilities in Khartoum, Nyala and Port Sudan.

“These are extremely difficult and tense days in Khartoum, but we have decided to stay here for the 81 patients being treated in our hospital. We can’t abandon them, it would risk their lives,” explains Franco Masini, Medical Coordinator at EMERGENCY’s Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum. “Many Sudanese colleagues are still unable to return home for security reasons and are sleeping in the hospital to provide continuity of care for in-patients.

“So far, none of our facilities or staff have been directly attacked or threatened. Everyone has decided individually whether to leave the hospital on the basis of an assessment of the precarious security conditions in the capital and the needs of patients,” adds Muhameda Tulumovic, EMERGENCY’s Programme Coordinator in Sudan. “Today, the Paediatric Centre in Mayo, on the outskirts of the capital, remains closed, where we could not guarantee safety conditions for either staff or patients. We have resumed work in Nyala, South Darfur, where fighting has subsided in recent days. We are also continuing our activities at our Paediatric Centre in Port Sudan, where the situation has always remained under control.”

EMERGENCY is present in Sudan with the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum and with paediatric centres in Mayo (Khartoum), Nyala (South Darfur) and Port Sudan where it offers free treatment to children under the age of 14.