Armed men attacked an 18-member team of Doctors Without Borders working at a key hospital in Sudan's war-torn capital of Khartoum, the aid group said Friday.
The MSF medical team was stopped on the road on Thursday while transporting supplies to the Turkish Hospital, located in the district of South Khartoum, the aid group said. The armed men first questioned the MSF team about why it was in Sudan, then started beating some of them.
"After arguing about the reasons for MSF’s presence, the armed men aggressively assaulted our team, physically beating and whipping them," the group said on its website.
One of the drivers was briefly detained, MSF added. The group did not say whether the attackers were in uniform or provide other details.
Sudan has been rocked by violence since mid-April, when tensions between the country's military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamden Dagalo, burst into open fighting.
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The conflict has since spread to several parts of the country, reducing Khartoum to an urban battlefield, and has also fueled ethnic violence in Sudan's western Darfur region.
The clashes have killed more than 3,000 people and wounded more than 6,000 others, according to June figures from the Sudanese government. However, the real toll is likely much higher, doctors and activists say. Over 3 million people have been displaced within Sudan or have fled the country to escape the violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Thursday's attack has prompted MSF to consider whether it can stay on at the Turkish Hospital, which has served as a base for the group's aid efforts in Sudan. According to MSF, it is also one of the only two hospitals still functioning in the Sudanese capital.
"The MSF is becoming seriously concerned that our presence in the Turkish Hospital will soon no longer be tenable," MSF said, in a post on twitter.
On streets of Khartoum, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces appears to have the upper hand. Over the past three months, its forces have occupied people’s houses and other civilian properties, according to residents and activists, and turned them into operational bases.
The Sudanese army has responded with airstrikes and shelling of densely populated civilian areas.
There have also been reports of widespread destruction and looting across Khartoum and the nearby city of Omdurman. Humanitarian facilities have often been targeted. At least two World Food Program sites have been looted, the U.N. agency said, one in Khartoum and the other in the central city of El Obeid.
