Global Courant
HUDUR, Somalia
Medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced on Monday that it has decided to withdraw all its services at Las Anod General Hospital in Somalia’s Sool region amid growing instability and repeated security incidents affecting the safe delivery of medical care.
He said repeated attacks on health facilities and the extreme level of violence had reached a point where he could no longer provide medical care.
“The protection and safety of patients, their caregivers and healthcare workers are no longer guaranteed,” MSF said in a statement.
According to MSF, Las Anod General Hospital was shot down during a clash between forces in Somalia’s secessionist Somaliland region and local tribal-based militias in the latest incident this month, injuring medical staff and caregivers, and also damaging an ambulance and causing the hospital’s delivery room to be closed, according to MSF.
It was the fifth incident since the violence escalated on February 6 this year.
“We regret that we had to stop our medical support as we know it will affect people’s access to vital medical care, who are currently endangered by the ongoing conflict,” said MSF country representative Dana Krause. “But we need to be able to work in an environment where minimum safety standards are maintained for patients and healthcare professionals.”
MSF has been working at Las Anod General Hospital since May 2019, providing the hospital with medical and technical expertise.
Las Anod resident Fadumo Ali Hassan told Anadolu by phone on Monday that MSF is providing life-saving medical assistance and that his withdrawal has “desperated many families affected by the violence and constant conflict in the town”.
Reacting to MSF’s statement on Twitter, Somali federal parliament member Mursal Khalif said the move “contradicts MSF’s medical ethics, as well as its principles of humanity, impartiality, impartiality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality”.
Las Anod has witnessed violent clashes between Somaliland forces and tribal militias that have killed hundreds, injured thousands and displaced many families.
Clashes broke out in Las Anod, the administrative capital of Somaliland’s eastern Sool region, after local leaders, civil society groups and religious leaders announced that they would no longer recognize the Somaliland government.
The Somaliland government labeled local forces “terrorists” and held them responsible for the violence.
Sool and Sanaag areas have been disputed territories with both Somaliland and Puntland state claiming ownership.
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