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At least 70 people were killed in an attack on a hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief said, urging an end to attacks on healthcare workers and facilities.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, confirmed in a post on social media that the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, “the only functional hospital in El Fasher”, was “packed with patients receiving care” at the time of the attack on Friday.

“The attack comes at a time when access to health care is already severely constrained in the state due to the closure of health facilities following intense bombardments,” he said.

“As the only functional hospital in El Fasher, the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital provides services which include gyn-obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery and paediatrics, along with a nutrition stabilisation centre.”

“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” he added.

“Above all, Sudan’s people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”

Mr Ghebreyesus also said that another health facility in North Darfur’s Al Malha was attacked, leading to a pause in healthcare services.

Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been at war since April 2023, due to differences over the integration of the two forces.

Millions of refugees have fled to neighbouring countries like Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan. More than 24 million people – half of Sudan’s population – are facing “acute food insecurity”, according to the latest UN figures.

Local officials have blamed the hospital attack on the RSF, reported the Associated Press.

United Nations official Clementine Nkweta-Salami, who coordinates humanitarian efforts for the world body in Sudan, warned on Thursday that the RSF had given “a 48-hour ultimatum to forces allied to the Sudanese Armed Forces to vacate the city and indicated a forthcoming offensive”.

“Since May 2024, El Fasher has been under RSF siege,” she said. “Civilians in El Fasher have already endured months of suffering, violence and gross human rights abuses under the prolonged siege. Their lives now hang in the balance due to an increasingly precarious situation.”

The RSF has not yet acknowledged the attack in El Fasher.

According to official figures, up to 80 per cent of healthcare facilities have been forced out of service.

Famine has already gripped three displacement camps — Zamzam, Abu Shouk, and Al-Salam — in the area around El-Fasher and is expected to spread to five more locations, including the city itself, by May, according to a UN-backed assessment.

Writing in The Independent, British foreign secretary David Lammy warned this week that Sudan’s 21-month-long civil war must not be forgotten due to a “hierarchy of conflicts” as millions suffer.

He wrote: “The women refugees I spoke to in a World Food Programme tent had lived through the killing of their husbands and brothers. One had burns on her arms; another was beaten while she was pregnant, leaving her baby disabled. They asked me: what is the world doing to help us? What more will the world do to stop this senseless killing and death?”

Additional reporting by agencies