SUDAN POLICE FORCE TO PROTECT MEDICS FROM COVID-19 ASSAULTS
▶ Dozens of attacks on doctors and hospitals have occurred since the start of the outbreak
Sudan is building a police force to protect health centres, the prime minister’s office said, after attacks on doctors and nurses during the coronavirus pandemic.
Doctors said on Thursday they would go on strike unless the government stepped up protection for health centres after a string of attacks on staff.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok met doctors’ representatives on Friday to seek “decisive and strict solutions” to “the phenomenon of repeated attacks on health workers,” his office said.
The government will introduce a draft bill to provide protection to medical staff, it said.
At least two dozen attacks on healthcare workers and premises have taken place in the past two months across the country, according to a tally by the Sudan Doctors’ Committee.
The group is part of the protest movement that last year helped to oust long-time autocrat Omar Al Bashir.
In one instance last month, a riot erupted at a hospital in the city Omdurman, across the Nile River from the capital, Khartoum, when a rumour spread that it would admit coronavirus patients.
Police arrested several people who had tried to attack the building.
On Thursday alone, there were at least three attacks on health workers and premises in Khartoum, forcing a hospital there to suspend its services, the committee said.
Sudan has reported 146 deaths from Covid-19 among about 3,628 confirmed cases of the coronavirus that causes the disease.
Its healthcare system has been weakened by decades of war and sanctions.
The country is still reeling from the uprising last year that toppled Al Bashir.
Meanwhile, a handful of young people took to the streets in Khartoum on Saturday, the first anniversary of the deadly dispersal of a protest camp in the last days of Ramadan last year.
The protesters torched tyres but no clashes were reported between them and security forces.
Footage circulated online showed some protesters practising social distancing or wearing masks as a precautionary measure against the virus.
The violent break-up last year of the protest camp outside the military’s headquarters in Khartoum was an alarming turn of events in the stand-off between the military and civilian protesters.
The protesters had been holding a sit-in to pressure the military council to hand power to civilians after Al Bashir was removed.
The protesters say at least 128 people were killed and hundreds wounded during the demonstration dispersal and the subsequent crackdown. But military-backed health authorities say only 87 died, including security forces.
The incident is being investigated.
Later, the generals and the protesters reached a power-sharing deal that established a joint military-civilian sovereign council to lead Sudan towards elections.
On Thursday alone, there were at least three attacks on healthcare workers and premises in the capital Khartoum