Fighting in Sudan eased on Tuesday and more foreigners and locals fled the capital Khartoum, where marauding combatants created what a U.N. agency said was a “high risk of biological hazard” by seizing a laboratory.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said one of the warring parties had taken control of a national health facility that stores measles and cholera pathogens for vaccinations, and ejected the technicians.
It gave few details and did not say which of the two sides – the army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)- had captured the lab, which also contains a major blood bank.
An exodus of embassies and aid workers from Africa’s third largest country has raised fears that civilians who remain will be in greater danger if an alternative to hostilities is not found before a shaky three-day truce ends on Thursday.
The clashes have paralysed hospitals and other essential services, and left many people stranded in their homes with dwindling supplies of food and water. The WHO has reported 14 attacks on health facilities and is relocating staff to safety.
Yassir Arman, a leading figure in a civilian political coalition, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), urged humanitarian groups and the international community to help restore water and electricity, and send generators to hospitals.
“There are bodies scattered in streets and sick people who cannot find medicine, no water nor electricity. People should be allowed to bury their dead during the ceasefire,” he said.
The U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) said shortages of food, water, medicines and fuel were becoming “extremely acute”, with prices for basic goods including bottled water rocketing, and it had been forced to cut back operations for safety reasons.
The U.N. refugee agency forecast that hundreds of thousands of people might flee into neighbouring countries.
