The children were evacuated to a small health clinic that we rehabilitated and expanded in May and June last year. Upgrading a small health clinic into a functioning hospital is not an easy task – especially during an active conflict. It was one of the very few children’s hospitals remaining in the whole Darfur region.
“We received referrals from across Darfur because of the lack of facilities elsewhere. Now we are one additional hospital down, just as we were trying to scale-up our response in El Fasher and Zamzam camp in response to the catastrophic malnutrition crisis there,” continued Michel-Olivier Lacharité, our Head of Emergency Operations.
The children were evacuated to a small health clinic that we rehabilitated and expanded in May and June last year. Upgrading a small health clinic into a functioning hospital is not an easy task – especially during an active conflict. It was one of the very few children’s hospitals remaining in the whole Darfur region.
“We received referrals from across Darfur because of the lack of facilities elsewhere. Now we are one additional hospital down, just as we were trying to scale-up our response in El Fasher and Zamzam camp in response to the catastrophic malnutrition crisis there,” he continued.
The 115 children in the hospital were receiving treatment for conditions such as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea and malnutrition. Now, many are receiving no treatment at all. The children who were killed were in a critical condition in our ICU, but their lives could have been saved.
