El Fasher hospitals use mosquito nets as bandages amid dire medical shortages

September 8, 2025 (EL FASHER)  – Doctors in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher are using mosquito nets to dress wounds due to a complete lack of surgical gauze and other basic supplies, a health official said on Monday, as the city’s healthcare system collapses.

The city in North Darfur has been under siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2024, blocking the entry of food, aid, and crucial medical supplies.

“Surgical gauze has completely run out in the operating hospitals, and doctors are resorting to using mosquito nets to dress wounds,” Nabil Mohamed, the Director of Health Centres for North Darfur’s health ministry, told Sudan Tribune.

Hospitals in El Fasher are receiving between 60 and 90 wounded people daily, most of them hit by RSF shelling that has targeted civilian gathering points and shelters, Mohamed said. He added that only one surgeon remains to treat the influx of casualties.

A prolonged blockade and the deliberate targeting of medical facilities have crippled the health sector. The airdropping of medical supplies stopped in April, worsening the shortages.

The few remaining facilities, including the Saudi Hospital and a military hospital, are dangerously overcrowded with wounded civilians, many of whom cannot get proper care.

More than 300 people have had limbs amputated recently because their wounds became infected due to the lack of medicine and sterile supplies, officials said.

A doctor at the Saudi Hospital said more than 1,500 people need urgent surgery that cannot be performed due to the siege.

“Victims of shelling and drone attacks are suffering from a lack of medical care,” the doctor said, adding that patients also struggle to find food.