30,000 SUDANESE BABIES WILL BE BORN WITHOUT MEDICAL CARE, SAVE THE CHILDREN WARNS

Tue 19 December 2023:

Almost 30,000 babies will be born in Sudan over the next three months without medical assistance, putting them and their mothers at risk of complications that could have lifelong and even fatal consequences, international NGO Save the Children has warned. While an estimated 45,000 babies will be born in the next three months across the entire country, according to the UN, only 35 per cent of the population have access to any form of healthcare.

“This leaves 65 per cent of people without access to hospitals, clinics or trained health professionals,” said the NGO. “The first 28 days of a child’s life — the neonatal, or new-born, period — carries the highest risk of death. It is also the most dangerous period for the new-born child’s mother. Even before the war that broke out this year, Sudan had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, according to UN data.”

The new analysis from Save the Children comes as aid agencies scramble against the clock to fill the huge funding gap of 60 per cent of the $2.6 billion needed to respond to the conflict.

Following months of violence, the health sector has nearly completely collapsed. Health workers, supplies and facilities continue to be targeted by armed groups. Where health facilities remain open, a lack of medical supplies, including blood bags and oxygen, water, fuel and personnel are severely disrupting services.

“When the conflict broke out in April, millions of people were pushed into hell,” said Dr Arif Noor, Country Director for Save the Children in Sudan. “Tens of thousands of new lives will be born into this anguish, more than half with no access to healthcare.”

While much of the world celebrates holidays and marks the end of the calendar year, he pointed out, 22 million children in Sudan are living an everyday nightmare of violence, fear, hunger, illness and distress.

“Even after eight months of aid agencies sounding the alarm, the response to Sudan’s crisis does not even have half the funding required to meet people’s basic needs. What will it take for people to care? There is a lot going on in the world right now, but we are pleading with the international community to remember children, their mothers and communities in Sudan.”

Some 25,000 pregnant women are estimated to be on the move across Sudan, likely cut off from health services and the right nutrition needed to support their growing babies. One 27-year-old mother experienced this earlier this year, fleeing from her home in Khartoum with her 7-year-old son while pregnant before giving birth to her new baby in a shelter for displaced people, with support from Save the Children’s mobile health clinic.

“I delivered my first son in Khartoum,” she explained. “When I was pregnant with him, I was following up with a doctor, an obstetrician. Every month, I used to go for tests and an ultrasound, and I used to take all my tablets [nutritional supplements] until I delivered naturally.” She noted the “big difference” between this birth and the delivery of her second son. “The difference is that when we were there our financial condition was good. But now things have changed since we came here to this complex. When we were there, we were living in our hometown, but now we are displaced.”

Save the Children has worked in Sudan since 1983 and is providing life-saving aid and children protection services together with national and international partners. Since the conflict broke out, the NGO has reached 250,000 people, including more than 135,000 children, and is operating medical and nutrition centres to provide food and other items for displaced families.

The NGO’s Children’s Emergency Health Unit provides children and their families with lifesaving, quality healthcare in some of the toughest and hardest-to-reach places in the world. The unit has teams of experts – including health professionals, water, sanitation and hygiene specialists and supply chain managers – who have decades of experience providing vital healthcare during conflicts, catastrophic natural hazards and disease outbreaks (including Ebola, cholera, Covid-19 and measles).

-MEMO

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