The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is a “huge biological risk” after fighters in Sudan seized the country’s national public laboratory holding samples of diseases including polio and measles.
“There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab,” said Nima Saeed Abid, the WHO’s representative in Sudan on Tuesday, talking to reporters in Geneva via video link.
Fighters “kicked out all the technicians from the lab … which is completely under the control of one of the fighting parties as a military base,” Abid said, adding that this created an “extremely, extremely dangerous” situation.
A power struggle between Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemeti,” has plunged Sudan into fierce fighting.
The WHO representative did not specify which side’s fighters have seized the laboratory.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced overnight that the two groups had agreed to a 72-hour nationwide cease-fire, which began at midnight, while governments worldwide are ramping up their efforts to evacuate their nationals from the country. The French government has coordinated much of the EU countries’ efforts to evacuate their nationals and diplomats.
Abid said he had received the information on the takeover from the head of the national laboratory in Khartoum on Monday, a day before the cease-fire came into effect.
Around 500 people have died so far and more than 4,000 are wounded due to the ongoing fighting, he said, citing numbers from the Sudanese health ministry.
