The main hospital in the southern Syrian city of Sweida is overwhelmed with trauma patients and working without adequate power or water after the local Druze minority clashed almost two weeks ago with Bedouin tribes.
“Inside of Sweida, it’s a grim picture, with the health facilities under immense strain,” the World Health Organization’s Christina Bethke told reporters in Geneva via video link from Damascus.
“Electricity and water are cut off, and essential medicine supplies are running out.”
Many medical staff cannot reach their workplace safely, and the main hospital’s morgue was full at one point this week as it dealt with a surge of trauma cases.
Though the WHO has managed to deliver two convoys of aid in the last week, access remains difficult because tensions remain between the groups controlling various parts of Sweida governorate, it said.
More than 145,000 people have been displaced by the recent fighting, the WHO said, with many sheltering in makeshift reception centers in Daraa and Damascus.
َAFP
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