As Sudan’s war dragged on and fighting engulfed the capital Khartoum, the health system collapsed almost entirely. Hospitals shut their doors one after another, until only a single facility remained in operation in the city of Omdurman.
Al Nao Hospital, perched west of the city on the front line of fierce military confrontations, became the capital’s last functioning emergency hospital, receiving the wounded, responding to urgent cases, and saving thousands of lives under relentless fire.
Despite severe security and psychological pressure, a small group of doctors, health workers, volunteers, and technicians held out to keep the hospital running amid indiscriminate shelling, falling rockets and artillery rounds, severe shortages of supplies, power and water outages, the collapse of communications, and an ever-increasing flow of emergency cases.
Throughout the siege and restrictions imposed on the hospital, doctors, medical staff, and volunteers treated the wounded using just three worn-out ambulances.
Their meals were limited to beans and lentils for breakfast and dinner, as no restaurants were operating in the surrounding area, which was saturated with the smell of blood and gunpowder.
Their efforts earned them the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which is awarded to individuals who risk their lives, freedom, or health to save others.
Harsh days
The field hospital demonstrated its ability to function in the darkest of times.
“I was deeply affected by the deaths of children, and they were in large numbers,” hospital director Dr. Jamal Eltaeb told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“We were receiving more than 100 cases a day, sometimes within a single hour, around 4,000 a month, with injuries ranging from severe to minor, and we treated large numbers of wounded.”
Eltaeb said the hospital began operating on April 17, 2023, just days after the outbreak of the war, through an initiative launched by young volunteers and with extremely limited capabilities to treat the wounded.
“The injuries caused by indiscriminate shelling shook me deeply, especially among children and women,” he said.
“The deaths of young children were the most painful. Even if you are a doctor, you never get used to seeing children with amputated limbs or their abdomens torn open.”
Drowning in chaos
While the streets of Omdurman sank into chaos, the hospital remained alive with activity.
“We worked with the medical staff available and the limited medicines we had,” Eltaeb said. “The Dutch organization Doctors Without Borders provided us with major support.”
He added that after the war began, he moved from Khartoum to Omdurman as a volunteer, before Khartoum State’s health ministry personally asked him to formally manage the hospital in July 2023.
Alongside colleagues Dr. Amir Mohammed Al-Hassan, a specialist in internal medicine and cardiology, and Dr. Yasser Shamboul, a specialist in internal medicine, he began work with limited resources.
“Ministries and institutions were absent,” Eltaeb said.
“The wounded, the sick, the elderly, and children accept no excuses. They just want someone to treat them.”
Painful scenes
In February 2025, a powerful explosion rocked a popular market in Omdurman, quickly flooding the hospital’s emergency room with bodies and injured victims. “That was one of the most difficult days,” Eltaeb said.
“Sabreen Market was crowded with shoppers. We received around 170 injured people in less than two hours, transported by trucks because there was no ambulance service.”
Those who attempted to help were not doctors or health workers, he said, leading to chaotic transport that mixed the dead with the wounded.
Hospital staff sorted the bodies from the living inside the trucks and confirmed 48 deaths, alongside patients with varying injuries, some of whom lost limbs or were left with permanent disabilities.
“But thank God, we saved the lives of the rest,” he said.
The hospital itself came under indiscriminate shelling, yet doctors and medical staff insisted on continuing their work.
Eltaeb said several hospital workers were killed by shelling and rockets, one volunteer died inside the adjacent mosque, two security guards were killed, and a soldier was wounded by a sniper’s bullet inside the hospital.
Aurora humanitarian prize
The Aurora Foundation for Awakening Humanity awarded its 2025 prize, worth $1 million, to Dr. Jamal Eltaeb in recognition of his efforts managing a hospital that served as a final medical line of defense in Khartoum during the armed conflict.
The prize is one of the world’s leading humanitarian awards, honoring those who risk their lives, freedom, or health to save others and alleviate suffering in situations of conflict, crimes against humanity, or human rights violations.
“I do not know who nominated me for this prize,” Eltaeb said. “I was selected from among 880 nominees without my knowledge. When the shortlist was reduced to 25 people, I learned that I had been nominated.”
He said the prize committee searched for him by sending inquiries to hospitals across Europe, looking for a doctor named Jamal Eltaeb. A colleague in anesthesia in London emailed a message to a fellow doctor at Al Nao Hospital, who forwarded it to him.
“When I read the message, I thought it was some kind of joke and did not reply,” he said. After being encouraged to respond, he shared his contact details and received a call the following day, as the shortlist narrowed to 15, then four, before he was named the final winner.
“The prize does not represent me personally,” Eltaeb said. “It represents the hospital family, the doctors, administrators, and workers. I was only leading them. I am no more deserving of this prize than they are.”
