About two weeks ago, the capital of North Darfur state had dozens of hospitals. There was the large teaching hospital including the South Hospital, a small 35-bed facility with big ambitions and a specific mission: to help reduce the high number of local women who die during pregnancy and childbirth.

Today, after the civil war that has broken out and the dramatic moments that the people in Sudan are living, the number of hospitals has been significantly reduced.

“In the city of El Fasher the only functioning hospital now is the South hospital… The three main other hospitals are all out of order,” said Dr. Mohamed Musoke, deputy program director for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for Sudan, according to the Guardian website.

The reasons hospitals have run low are either because staff can’t move and go to work, or because important equipment has been damaged. The children’s hospital has been ransacked by armed men and is no longer able to treat sick babies. As a result, the southern hospital has been transformed from a specialist hospital to a multi-functional multi-trauma center, where staff are doing their best to cope with the huge influx of mainly civilian patients.

“[Το νοσοκομείο] from the 30 beds it had now it has reached 108”, Musoke said. “But these are not in the right places; [βλέπεις] a corner, you put a bed there. [βλέπεις] a corridor, you put a bed there” he adds. Since the start of the fighting on April 15, the hospital has received more than 400 wounded, mostly with gunshot and shrapnel injuries, many of them children. Fifty-four of the injured have died.

“And because it’s still the only functioning hospital, yes, injured people are coming in, but also other very sick people. Sick children come in. Pregnant women should come and give birth in this space,” he continued. Now, in the maternity ward, there are two women for every bed. Emergency C-sections are performed alongside surgeries for the injured. If the babies are born prematurely or get sick with rot, there are no incubators to put them in, Musoke points out.

In Khartoum, only 16% of health facilities are still functioningaccording to the World Health Organization.

Observers worry that whatever small steps have been taken to address the country’s massive health problems – from extreme hunger and malnutrition to dengue fever and malaria – will be wiped out with the outbreak of civil war.

Meanwhile, fears are growing among health officials that the indirect death toll from the conflict will be significant. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, warned of “many more deaths” both due to lack of access to food and clean water but also due to the spread of infectious diseases combined with problems with vaccinations.