Darfur Hospitals Under Fire

Recent fighting in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, hit hospitals and most health clinics hard, and international agencies withdrew. In the aftermath, the surviving Sudanese medical teams combined efforts to turn a modest maternity hospital and a tin-roof clinic into the city’s last trauma wards. Join us as Darfur Peace and Development Organization (DPDO) President Suliman Giddo, who has just returned from the Chad border; Dr. Eilaf Mohamed, who served in the maternity hospital and escaped wounded; and filmmaker/emergency coordinator Daniel J. Gerstle will share their story to illuminate how the international community could do more to help.

Sudan’s western region of Darfur has suffered more than two decades of violence and worsening droughts, a year of civil war, and now the brutal siege of its last government and joint force-controlled city, El Fasher. Over the three-month siege, fighters have directly targeted hospitals, medical teams, pharmacies, and even health clinics.

Speakers

• Suliman Giddo, Ph.D., founder and president of DPDO, will speak about how organizations like his, the Emergency Response Rooms, and others could do more with the help of international partners.
• Eilaf Mohamed, M.D., an OBGYN from Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher and a physician building a career in psychology, was one of the first medical staff wounded. She will share what it was like and what could help her colleagues.
• Daniel J. Gerstle, founder and director of Humanitarian Bazaar and a former emergency coordinator, is now producing documentary films and has been supporting Sudanese journalists and medical teams to tell the story of health care under fire.

Ruth Mukwana, senior fellow, and Lily Egan, communications officer, both of the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University, will facilitate the webinar.