Summary
For three years during Sudan’s war, Dr. Jamal Eltaeb has made choices that other surgeons would not face: whether to operate without the medicines that normally make surgery safer, how to keep electricity running when fuel is uncertain, and whether to stay at Al Nao hospital in Omdurman as bombardment closes in. The orthopedic surgeon led the hospital just outside Khartoum as control of nearby urban areas shifted between Sudan’s army and paramilitary fighters, and he remained after many colleagues left. The Associated Press reported that Eltaeb has continued treating waves of wounded even as supplies ran out and the hospital was struck more than once.
In an interview with AP, Eltaeb explained that he weighed the option of leaving against the obligation to care for patients. He told the AP he was choosing “to take care of your patients and helping other people that need you as a skilled surgeon, rather than choose your own safety.” He also described the decision as “Keep working,” saying only one option felt straightforward as the front line moved closer.
AP reported that nearly 40% of Sudan’s hospitals no longer function, with many stripped for parts or used as bases by armed groups. In that setting, Al Nao became one of the area’s only operating health centers after the flow of patients surged when fighting began in Khartoum and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces captured swaths of the city. Eltaeb’s own hospital elsewhere shut shortly after the war began in April 2023, and he moved to Al Nao, where, by July, most staff had fled and he was left in charge, according to AP.
Walking through the hospital, Eltaeb showed AP journalists damage that came with the conflict’s approach and that reduced what the facility could do day to day. He pointed to a window that had been hit and said a relative of a patient was killed there. In the courtyard, AP reported, he indicated tents that had been erected during the peak of mass-casualty needs, and he said the hospital had been forced to work wherever space and conditions allowed—“We were working everywhere, in tents, outside, on the floor, doing everything to save patients’ lives,” Eltaeb said.
Eltaeb also described how the hospital’s location made it a repeated target. He said that after the first strike, the staff understood what was coming: “From that moment, we knew that we are a target … And from that time, they didn’t stop targeting us,” he told AP. AP reported that the RSF later struck the hospital three more times, and that even electricity often went out for weeks as the facility relied on the army to supply fuel for generators.
As the violence worsened, Eltaeb said triage decisions became nearly impossible. AP reported that in late 2024, after a strike hit a nearby market, he and his team scrambled to treat more than 100 wounded people; he said eight of them died. He added that the situation demanded decisions without the ability to extend care evenly, saying: “You choose … as if you can choose who is going to live and who is going to die.”
Eltaeb described cases that underscored the limits of what the hospital could do under scarcity. He said at one point he had to decide whether to amputate on children even without full anesthetic because they were bleeding heavily and he did not have time to transport them to the operating room. AP reported that he used local anesthesia and removed an arm and leg of a 9-year-old boy, and removed a leg of the boy’s 11-year-old sister. He later, AP said, reviewed photos of those surgeries on his phone while trying to explain to outsiders the scale of what the staff had been forced to do.
When medicines were no longer reliably available, AP reported that volunteers helped keep items moving. The hospital posted what it needed on social media, and pharmacists provided keys for their long-closed shops so volunteers could take medicine and other supplies for free. AP highlighted Nazar Mohamed as one volunteer who spent months riding around Omdurman—often by bicycle—delivering supplies while explosions echoed nearby.
Eltaeb said support also came from abroad, including remote advice from a network of Sudanese doctors overseas on coping with mass casualties and on how to respond when antibiotics or anesthesia ran low. Within the hospital, staff adjusted routines and improvised tools, AP reported, making beds and crutches out of wood and using clothes instead of gauze for makeshift splints as conditions deteriorated.
As fighting shifted away from the Khartoum area, AP reported, the hospital’s funding and attention followed the movement of the war. Eltaeb said there was enough money until June to pay salaries and keep generators running, but he said the hospital needed about $40,000 a month to function. He warned that while some countries have pledged support for Sudan’s reconstruction, the war with Iran might divert attention and resources, including from Gulf countries that have vowed to help the country recover. Nearby, AP reported, Dr. Osman Ismail Osman of Al Shaabi hospital said the government provided several hundred thousand dollars, which he described as far from sufficient; the RSF occupied the hospital during the war, leaving destroyed equipment and damaged facilities.
Eltaeb said the pressure of working through shortages and attacks had not changed his basic mission. “I believe I did my best as a doctor as a Sudanese,” he told AP. In a conflict that has driven hospitals toward collapse, his account reflects how remaining medical staff and volunteers are trying to keep emergency care alive even as other facilities lie in ruins.