THE healthcare system in a western city of Sudan has “totally collapsed,” a doctors’ union warned today, as thousands of people continue to attempt to flee the country.

The city of el-Geneina in western Sudan, near the country’s border with Chad, has been under an unprecedented barbaric onslaught since April 20, read a statement released today by the Sudan Doctors Syndicate (SDS).

The fighting there has resulted in hundreds of injuries and dozens of deaths, the union said.

The city’s central hospital has been extensively damaged, all dialysis centres are out of service and pharmacies and medical dispensaries have been looted, the doctors said.

Worse, the Red Crescent’s local offices have been burned down, most humanitarian workers have been evacuated to Chad, and only a skeleton Red Crescent remains in the country.

“We were able to confirm 94 deaths so far,” the SDS said. “Healthcare facilities have been assaulted and looted, as have camps of the dislocated people.”

The SDS called on governments and humanitarian organisations across the world to “come to the rescue of innocent citizens, help evacuate the injured and protect patients, women, elderly people, and children.”

Meanwhile, thousands of Sudanese and people from other nations have arrived in Port Sudan, where foreign governments have been evacuating their citizens by sea and air.

Some have been ferried over to Saudi Arabia. Others remain in the city, camping out beside the ports.

Others still have made for Egypt to the north on packed buses and trucks. But thousands have been stranded at the border for days, as the Egyptian authorities demand they fill out paperwork to be allowed inside the country.

Since the conflict between the Sudan’s military and rival paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces began on April 15, at least 334,000 people have been displaced inside the country, the UN estimates — and tens of thousands have been forced to seek refuge in Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia.

“Now we’re seeing some extremely fast-moving situations along the borders,” Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, said today.

He said that between 900 and 1,000 people arrive daily at the border with Ethiopia where “there’s a desperate lack of wash services, food, shelter, water, medical assistance.”