A woman turns up at the entrance of the tented cholera quarantine ward in Kassala Teaching Hospital. She has a small baby in her arms.
“Does your baby have cholera?” an anxious health worker asks. The woman says no. “Then move away from here,” he yells.
These are extreme conditions that require a stern tone. Sudan‘s eastern states, areas of relative safety in a country torn apart by war, are facing a battle of their own. A fight to combat the spread of life-threatening illness like cholera – soaring in unsanitary conditions aggravated by heavy rains, mass displacement and crumbling infrastructure.
Inside the ward, health workers move quickly to triage incoming patients. Most of them are too weak to walk or talk.
One man collapses as he tries to walk from one room to the next. He is put in a wheelchair and moved to a room a few steps from where he fell. As soon as his helpers release him, he drops down onto a hard bed. There is no strength to sit up without support.
“This is the first time the state experiences something like this. At least in recent years, there has not been a cholera outbreak like this,” Dr Ali Adam, Kassala Minister of Health, tell us in the quarantine ward.
He has granted us rare access to the facility despite the dire conditions around us.
“There is extreme pressure on the state’s services. Kassala is home to three million people – a number that has nearly doubled.”
Advertisement
Despite the despairing state of the people being treated behind him, those who can make it to this ward are the fortunate ones. With rehydration therapy and monitoring, they are very likely to survive.
The latest figures from Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health show that cholera cases are surging. On the 26 September, 15,557 cases had been reported since late July. By yesterday that had jumped to 24,116 reported cases – a 55% increase in just two-and-a-half weeks.
Cholera-related deaths in the same reporting window are also on the rise. 681 people have died – a 34% increase from 507 deaths.
Experts and frontline responders told us these figures are still likely to be a gross underestimate.
Sudan’s cholera outbreak is a growing, grim reality – fuelled by armed violence and the ongoing displacement of people to densely populated safe zones.
The country is currently experiencing the world’s worst internal displacement crisis.
“The main issue in cholera is overpopulation,” says Chiara Lodi, MSF Spain’s Sudan country director. “The movement from one state to another impacts the health system because it cannot absorb and impacts the infrastructure – the city or the village – because they do not have enough space for everyone and they are not built to have so many people.”
Movement of critical supplies and humanitarian support has also been hampered by state bureaucracy in the wartime terrain.
“If we need to intervene in 24 hours as we normally do, it is impossible because we need to follow certain procedures,” says Chiara.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
As the chaos of this conflict continues to unfold, the millions of vulnerable people impacted by the spread of deadly diseases are falling through the cracks.
“In this kind of setting everyone is focussed and worried about a certain kind of patient and then we forget that actually the population that is most impacted by what is happening is not the people that are getting blast injuries,” Chiara adds.
“It is children, mothers and elderly who have to escape and find themselves without anything in a place that is not built to cope with them and a health system that is heading to collapse.”
The image of a person burning alive among tents in a hospital compound in Gaza has been widely shared online.
Warning: This story contains details and images readers may find distressing
The video captures the moments after an Israeli strike on al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah on Monday, in which medics said three people were killed and 40 others were wounded.
The person in the flames was 19-year-old Shaban al Dalu. He was just days away from his 20th birthday.
In the footage he appears to be connected to an IV line, though Sky News was unable to independently verify what the object shown is.
Here, Sky News looks at his story, as our analysis reveals the compound had been struck six times this year.
Shaban was sheltering in a tent in the compound of the hospital with his parents and five siblings. In a YouTube video he posted in February speaking from a tent he built, he said they had been displaced five times.
At the time of the strike, Shaban was recovering from an injury he had suffered 10 days ago.
Shaban’s 16-year-old brother Mohammed identified him in the video of the fire following the strike.
He told Sky News: “My father was busy with my younger brother so I couldn’t help but run towards Shaban to try to help him. People stopped me from getting closer to the danger, saying the civil defence was on its way to put the fire out.
“I kept saying ‘but my brother is on fire! My brother is on fire! Please let me go.’ They wouldn’t let me. My brother was burning in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help him. It’s an indescribable feeling.”
Their mother, Alaa, was also trapped and died in the inferno.
Shaban, a computer system engineering student, was trying to leave Gaza and had launched a fundraising page online.
“I used to have big dreams, but the war has ruined them. It has taken a toll on me, making me physically and mentally sick… Time feels like it’s stopped in Gaza, and we’re stuck in a never-ending nightmare,” Shaban wrote on his GoFundMe page.
Shaban’s 14-year-old cousin Tasnim was also at the compound when the Israeli strike hit. He told Sky News: “I really don’t understand what we did to deserve this? We’re displaced families. Moving around from one place to the next. That’s all we can do. What did we do wrong?”
Satellite pictures taken on Saturday shows dozens of tents or makeshift shelters in the grounds. Many displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in hospital grounds since the start of the war.
The strike has been criticised by UN acting under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Joyce Msuya, who said “there seems to be no end to the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure”.
The Israeli military said it was a “precise strike on terrorists” operating in a “command and control centre” in a car park next to the hospital.
Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian facilities like hospitals for military purposes, which Hamas denies.
IDF international spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, said a “fire ignited” in the hospital’s car park after the strike, adding that it was “most likely due to secondary explosions. The incident is under review”.
Sky analysis of previous attacks on the compound shows it has been hit six times since the end of March.
The first occurred on 31 March. The IDF hit a location close to the hospital’s main building, claiming it was targeting a command centre used by the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
As it does now, the affected area was occupied by tents.
The head of the World Health Organization said that strike caused four deaths and 14 injuries.
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.
The compound was hit again on 22 July. The IDF has not made a public statement on this strike.
Video from the scene shows tents reportedly used by journalists on fire. At the time, Associated Press reported that one person was killed.
On 4 August, the IDF targeted another area of the compound. At least five people were reportedly killed.
In comments to the media, the IDF said the strike was targeting a militant in the area.
On 5 September, an Israeli strike hit an area in the west of the compound. While the IDF did not confirm the strike’s precise location, it claimed it had targeted a Hamas command centre in the area.
Before Monday, the most recent strike at the hospital compound occurred on 27 September, when an area covered in tents was hit.
While the IDF did not comment publicly on this strike, components of a missile are visible in footage from the scene. Markings on the debris identify it as a Hellfire missile, which are used by Israel and other US allies.
Speaking to Sky News, former US army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor Ball said the fragment was from a Hellfire missile.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The deputy leader of Hezbollah has warned Israel it will continue to suffer from attacks unless it agrees to a ceasefire.
Naim Qassem said the group had adopted a new strategy in the past week centred around making Israel feel “pain” – and said it would continue if a deal to pause fighting in Lebanon and Gaza could not be reached.
Qassem, who is also the group’s acting leader following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallahlast month, said: “The solution is a ceasefire. We are not speaking from a position of weakness, if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue.”
He said Israel’s attacks across Lebanon gave Hezbollah the right to respond in equal measures, adding: “We will focus on targeting the Israeli military and its centres and barracks.”
The pre-recorded televised speech on Tuesday came as funerals took place across the region for those killed in the latest string of attacks.
In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Palestinians gathered to mourn the deaths of at least 15 people who were killed in overnight Israeli strikes, including six children and two women, according to officials from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
At least 10 people from the same family were reportedly killed in the bombing of a house in the town of Beni Suhaila. A camera operator for the news agency Associated Press counted the bodies at nearby Nasser Hospital.
Another five were killed in nearby Fakhari.
In Israel, funerals were held for several recently killed soldiers, including 19-year-old Sergeant Yoav Agmon, who died in Hezbollah’s attack on Sunday.
In the Iranian capital of Tehran, a service was also held for Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan – who was killed in the same Beirut airstrike that killed Hassan Nasrallah.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, work continued on Tuesday to clear the debris following an Israeli strike on the Christian-majority town of Aitou in the north of the country on Monday.
UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said at least 22 people had been killed in the bombing, and that many of the victims were women and children.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:08
Israel Defence Forces condemned by 40 counties
Mr Laurence added: “We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL [International Humanitarian Law], so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality.”
The UN also said on Tuesday that Israel had ordered more than 25% of Lebanon’s territory to be evacuated, and that more than 400,000 children in the country had been displaced in the past three weeks alone.
In Yavne, near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, a gunman killed a policeman and wounded four people after opening fire on cars on a motorway, according to Israeli police on Tuesday.
He was shot dead by a passer-by. There was no confirmation of the identity of the gunman, but Israeli officials described him as a “terrorist”.
A man has been rescued after drifting in an inflatable boat for two months – but his brother and nephew were reportedly found dead on the vessel.
He was found by a fishing boat in the Sea of Okhotsk, the coldest sea in east Asia, according to the local prosecutor’s office.
Russian media named him as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin and said he had set off along with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew on a whale-watching trip to the Shantar Islands in early August.
Datawrapper
This content is provided by Datawrapper, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Datawrapper cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Datawrapper cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Datawrapper cookies for this session only.