Exactly two years after Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) first worked in south Khartoum’s Bashair Teaching hospital, its personnel are returning there to help meet the needs of patients, the group said in a statement on Friday.
This is possible thanks to a partnership agreement with the Ministry of Health.
MSF suspended activities at the hospital in January 2025 after repeated violent incidents.
”Our initial focus will be the worrying and growing cholera outbreak” MSF said.
“Our team in Bashair Teaching hospital has been working to ensure that the 20-bed cholera treatment unit is ready to receive patients. Training for over 60 hospital staff members has been completed, and cholera-related medical supplies have arrived at the hospital,” said Slaymen Ammar, MSF medical coordinator for Sudan.
“The war has had a devastating impact on people’s access to healthcare. The population in many localities within the capital, including south Khartoum, still don’t have the needed access to essential, life-saving healthcare.”
“Restarting and expanding critical health services in Bashair Hospital and beyond can’t wait – it was needed yesterday,” Ammar added.
Like many health facilities in Khartoum and across Sudan, Bashair Teaching hospital stopped functioning when war first broke out in April 2023.
A few weeks later, medics and volunteers reopened it to ensure the community could still access healthcare.
An MSF surgical and medical team joined them on 9 May 2023, enabling the hospital to provide surgery alongside emergency medical care.
In the first five weeks of working there, the emergency room saw more than 1,000 patients, over 900 of them with trauma-related injuries.
For 20 months, MSF teams worked alongside volunteers and medical staff to provide healthcare to people trapped in violence and devastation in south Khartoum.
Over the past two years, MSF has had to suspend activities several times. In 2023, a ban on the transport of surgical supplies to Khartoum forced a stop to all surgical activities – including caesarean sections and trauma care – for several months.
In November and December 2024, violent incidents, including the killing of a patient in the hospital, led MSF to suspend temporarily.
When armed men again entered the hospital in January 2025, MSF made the difficult decision to suspend all activity at the hospital.
MSF said the situation in Khartoum is significantly calmer now but many hospitals and healthcare facilities have been damaged or closed because of the war and are not fully functional.
”In addition to restarting work in Bashair Teaching hospital, MSF is providing general healthcare through mobile clinics in central and south Khartoum, and we are preparing to restart other medical activities in various parts of the city and state” the group said.
WN/as/APA