Omdurman, Sudan – Hunger is everywhere Sudan torn by war. While the poorest of the poor, including hundreds of thousands of people trapped in war areas, are faced with famine, popular soups have even emerged at the corners of the street at the center of cities like Omdurman, which shelters Two million people.
Well -noid professionals have lined up for food documents. There was complete erosion of the middle class.
CBS News met Mohammed Hamad in one of the lines. He is an electrician engineer and once had a lucrative business. But like so many others in Sudan, he found that the raging civil war meant that there is no work and no income.
The country’s economy collapsed and Hamad said he could not provide for his family.
“We are counting on God and help,” he told us.
Right now, he is largely left to God.
The popular soup offers a small meal a day for Hamad and his wife and four children. His dependence on charity is a source of deep pain for him.
“It breaks my heart. I cannot provide food or even drugs if they are sick. Sometimes we make our own medicines from ingredients we have at home,” he said .
Hamad’s wife had a pulmonary infection when we met, and he said he couldn’t even afford to take her to the hospital.
Many popular soups strewn in the urban areas of Sudan have been funded by the United States, almost 80% of them closed rapidly following the suspension of President Trump of the American foreign aid.
The popular soups also served the few hospitals still standing in Omdurman, including Al Noa, which is the largest Omdurman hospital which continued to operate during the war. It is about 12 miles from the front lines in the capital Khartoum.
The establishment has no funds to provide meals themselves. When we visited the hospital, a popular soup led by the Emergency Charity was busy serving rice patients and lenses. It was the only food they would eat that day.
The hospital is overwhelmed and under-strengthened. He was affected by rockets several times during the almost two years war. Fortune tents have been installed outside to cope with overflow. CBS News saw the patients treated on the ground due to a lack of beds.
In the midst of all this, the medical staff under the direction of Dr. Jamal Mohammad had trouble saving the life of the wounded and hungry by the war.
Despite the financial support of the United States and other donors, they already lacked everything, analgesics and bandages to vital equipment before Mr. Trump brakes all foreign help in the United States.
“I do not know what is behind this decision by President Trump, but I think that will increase and deepen the suffering of our people,” he told us. “We are forgotten war.”
The former American ambassador to the African Union Jesseye Lapenn told CBS News that, in many ways, American support in countries like Sudan, which has come for a long time mainly by USAIDwas “the face of American values. It is the play on the ground of our foreign policy”.
She said that she feared that the drastic and sudden withdrawal of help, even if it turns out to be temporary, will have disastrous consequences.
“What we see now is, I fear it, that I will signify a lack of respect for the United States, a sapper of American interests, and certainly real negative impacts in the field for African partners”, she said.
Lapenn argued that there had been a false declaration of USAID work by officials in Washington.
“I think that the debate is now somehow USAID as if it was a charity, and as if it was a work of charity that we cannot afford. And I don’t think it’s true on both points, “she said. “We know that it is perhaps 1% of the federal budget, so we can afford it. But at the same time, it was not a charity. It was much more a strategic investment in American relations worldwide. “
Without partnerships with the United States, some countries may have any other choice than to turn elsewhere to try to fill the financial vacuum. Some may have to use the negotiation or the sale of their natural resources to meet these needs.
The United Arab Emirates, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia all support each side in the conflict of Sudan, eyes on mineral wealth, or, in the case of Russia, a base on the coast of Sudan in Sudan port.
The United Nations made a new call to emergency financing last week, seeking $ 6 billion to mitigate hunger in Sudan – 40% more than the world body should not be necessary last year – and the Call the worst catastrophe of hunger he has ever tried to speak.
Cindy McCain, who heads the United Nations World Food Program, said the agency for providing support for some 25 million people faced with Hunger in Sudan during the weekend, but warning that “humanitarian services are by the edge “.
“The global community must act now – the lives depend on it”, ” She said In an article on social networks, a few days after saying that Sudan was “now the epicenter of the largest and most serious hunger crisis in the world”.
We do not know who or what could help to fill the gap left by the suspension of the work of the USAID, but certainly at the CBS News hospital visited, the Sudanese staff was determined to continue the best they can.
While we followed Mohammad, the chief doctor of Al Noa Hospital, he stopped in one of the overcrowded districts to console Akram Atlan, 10, whose leg had been broken by bursts of shells. He played with friends by a river when it happened. The little boy was in tears, terrified, he would lose his leg and, with him, his dream of being a football.
But he was in good hands. Mohammad was a main orthopedic surgeon before the start of the war. He lost everything when the conflict started – his house, his private lucrative practice in Khartoum, his car and his life savings. His family fled safely in Egypt, but he has stayed behind and, for almost two years, has directed the hospital without any salary. He performs three to four operations most of the time.
While the young Akram was prepared for surgery later in the day, Mohammad told us that he had never imagined that he would operate on the injured war. His previous job was focused on the healing of the broken bones and the change of life of people for the best, and not in the grip to keep them alive.
But despite the limited resources, he always brings hope. He operated for more than four hours on the little boy, repairing the broken bones and removing a large piece of shells from his leg. The operation was a success and Akram will be able to play football again.
“This is my oath,” said Mohammad when he was asked why he decided to stay in his nation torn apart by the war, without his family, to operate the besieged hospital. “That’s it. To save lives.”
Debora Patta
