JUST IN: UN alarmed over attacks on healthcare sites in Sudan

The United Nations is alarmed by attacks on healthcare sites in Sudan, mainly the impact on women and girls in the country, a UN spokesman said.

Of the more than 2.5 million women and girls of reproductive age in Sudan, nearly 263,000 are estimated to be pregnant, said Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio

“One third of them will give birth in the next three months. And all of them need access to critical reproductive health services,” the spokesman said.

In areas impacted by fighting, the World Health Organisation and the UN Population Fund report that more than two-thirds of the hospitals are closed.

Several maternity hospitals are also out of action.

Citing the International Organisation for Migration, Haq said violence in Sudan has displaced almost two million people.

The highest proportion of internally displaced persons has been in West Darfur, River Nile, White Nile and Northern states.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that over the past four weeks, it arranged for 438 trucks carrying about 17,000 tonnes of aid to go to different parts of Sudan.

Fifty trucks moved during the first two days of the latest ceasefire.

“The United Nations continues to deliver, ceasefire or not,” said Haq, adding that the world body also continues to call for an end to the fighting so that “we can reach all people in need in Sudan, wherever they are.”