Sudan – Hundreds of pregnant women in the city of Al-Daein in East Darfur State found themselves facing the risk of death after the "Al-Tadamun" Hospital for Women and Maternity, the only facility in the state specialized in cesarean and complicated deliveries, completely stopped operating.

According to local residents, a family that arrived with a woman in labor to undergo an urgent cesarean section was forced to return and search for costly alternatives after finding the hospital doors closed.

This stoppage comes against the backdrop of a heated administrative struggle over the hospital's affiliation. The hospital, located east of the large Al-Daein market, operates with full funding from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Health sources said that "the Rapid Support Forces demanded the conversion of the hospital into a military medical administration affiliated with them," while the Ministry of Health insisted that it remain a purely civilian facility serving women and maternity only — the dispute that led to its closure.

Medical staff at the hospital used to receive daily between 10 and 12 cases of complicated deliveries, most of them critical cases coming from the state's eight localities and neighboring states.

The staff warned that the continuation of the closure will exacerbate the suffering of mothers and newborns, especially since the hospital is the only one equipped with an operating room working around the clock and provides its services and medicines free of charge, while the cost of a cesarean section in private hospitals reaches one million Sudanese pounds, an amount most families cannot afford.

No official comment has yet been issued by the Ministry of Health in East Darfur or by the Rapid Support Forces leadership regarding the crisis and its consequences.