'Almost impossible' to provide aid in Khartoum, IFRC says

GENEVA — The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday it was nearly impossible to provide humanitarian services around the Sudanese capital Khartoum and warned that the country's health system was at risk of collapse.

"The truth is that at the moment it is almost impossible to provide any humanitarian services in and around Khartoum," Farid Aiywar, IFRC head of delegation for Sudan, told reporters via video link from Nairobi.

"There are calls from various organizations and people trapped asking for evacuation."

Aiywar warned that if disruptions to the Sudanese health system persisted, "it will almost go into a collapse."

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 185 people and injured more than 1,800.

The World Health Organization said it had so far documented three attacks on healthcare facilities killing at least three people and reiterated calls for them to cease.

"Attacks on health care are a flagrant violation of humanitarian law and the right to health, and they must stop now," WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said.

"It's absolutely critical for everyone concerned that those attacks stop."

Harris that hospitals in Khartoum were severely lacking lifesaving supplies and that blackouts were making it difficult to render basic services.

"It's so dangerous for anybody to move anywhere, which is making it so difficult for staff to actually get to the hospitals," she said.