St Mary’s Maternity Hospital - Khartoum, Sudan
Project run by the Comboni Sisters for internally displaced Sudanese

For many years Sudan has been in the grip of civil war between the north and the south of the country. This has forced hundreds of thousands of people from southern Sudan (mostly African and Christian) to flee either into neighbouring Uganda or to northern Sudan (whose people are mainly Arabic and Muslim). It is estimated that there are now more than two million southern Sudanese living in very poor conditions in and around the capital, Khartoum.

The southern Sudanese women could not possibly afford to pay for maternity care and it is these women and their babies who now make up most of the hospital’s patients. The Comboni Sisters run the hospital and provide the nursing staff while the doctors and midwives are Sudanese. With a mix of Muslim/Christian and Arabic/African staff and patients, the hospital has for years been a means of dialogue in a country divided by ethnic and religious tensions.

IRT has raised money for vital equipment for the hospital, such as beds and equipment to set up a blood bank. It is now raising money for ante-natal care for refugee women.

<< Back to main listing of projects