UN officials on Tuesday said that one side in the Sudan conflict has seized control of a national health lab in the capital, Khartoum, that holds biological material, calling it an “extremely dangerous” development.
The announcement came as officials warned that more refugees could flee Sudan despite a ceasefire between rival forces.
The fighting has plunged Sudan into chaos, pushing the already heavily aid-dependent African nation to the brink of collapse. Before the clashes, the UN estimated that one-third of Sudan’s population — or about 16 million people — needed assistance, a figure that is likely to increase.
Photo: AFP / HO / SUDAN RAPID SUPPORT FORCES (RSF)
Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO’s representative in Sudan, said that “one of the fighting parties” — he did not identify which one — had seized control of the central public health laboratory in Khartoum and “kicked out all of the technicians.”
“That is extremely, extremely dangerous because we have polio isolates in the lab. We have measles isolates in the lab. We have cholera isolates in the lab,” Abid told a UN briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, by videoconference from Port Sudan. “There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab in Khartoum by one of the fighting parties.”
The expulsion of technicians and power cuts in Khartoum mean “it is not possible to properly manage the biological materials that are stored in the lab for medical purposes,” the WHO said.
The lab is in central Khartoum, close to flashpoints of the fighting that pits Sudan’s military against the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that grew out of the Janjaweed militias implicated in atrocities in the Darfur conflict.
Since the outbreak of fighting on April 15, at least 20,000 Sudanese have fled into Chad.
About 4,000 South Sudanese refugees who had been living in Sudan have returned to their home country, UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Olga Sarrado said.
The figures could rise, Sarrado added.
She did not have numbers for the five other countries neighboring Sudan, but the UN’s refugee agency has cited unspecified numbers of those fleeing Sudan arriving in Egypt.
“The fighting looks set to trigger further displacement both within and outside the country,” she said, speaking at the briefing in Geneva.
The agency was scaling up its operations, she said, even as foreign governments have raced to evacuate their embassy staff and citizens from Sudan.
Many Sudanese have desperately sought ways to escape the chaos, fearing an all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed.
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