Overwhelmed health workers rushed from patient to patient in makeshift tents in Sudan, trying to help even though they too had barely escaped the fall of El-Fasher to paramilitary forces.

“We’re not in good shape,” said Ikhlas Abdallah, a general practitioner who arrived from the western Darfur city now in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been battling the Sudanese army since April 2023.

“But we have to be okay to provide care to those who need it,” she said.

She spoke from Al-Dabbah camp, located in army-held territory about 770 kilometers northeast of El-Fasher, which endured an 18-month siege before falling to the RSF last month.