Ibn Auf children’s hospital…simply magnificent. By: Abdul-Aziz Ali Omer

The previous column has been dominated by the sound of mother and friend mourning son and friend and cortege fuming over the un-timely loss of a young life in the first ever unknown assassination at Khartoum University. The same faces that looked harassed and distraught turned up two days later in another viable hopeful place preceded by porters who in consolation transformed it into a carnival of brightly painted tables and chairs. Was that in preparation of an eulogy of some one? I asked one of on-lookers who assembled in Ibn Auf Pediatric hospital. No, he answered with an affable smile. It is an auguration for the children specialist hospital. He added. Ibn Auf Pediatric hospital takes its name from a Sudanese doctor who made the “scoop” in children’s health and well-being in this country and the long standing hospital is a sustained up-dated medical effort in recognition of his meritorious services. A pathetic to a Chinese child carried strapped to the back of his father to a distant school, I attended the opening celebration of refurbished hospital, my pity changed into an admiration. Ibn Auf Pediatric hospital is a place where Martin Luther king dream can build his dream of ...”Little boys and girls joining hands” How can children clasp hands while their bodies are assailed by relentless diseases! First, they get their vitality and bloom of sunny health. U.N’s Humanitarian chief Valerie Amos warned last month that “Syria is in a danger of losing a generation of it’s children” we are a country at war and should wake up to such an alarm. It should be moving to those who ignite new fires in Sudan.
The renovation of the respective hospital is a commendable initiative of keeping the dream of generations of children intact, neat full-grown, vibrant, healthy and let us complements it with halting the exploitation of children in war and labour.
At last! After 20 years, the curtain was lifted. What a breath-taking sight! Abdurrahman Zouma, a fellow writer had his nephew born there. He confided that the premises of hospital were once infested with prowling straying cats. Now, the view has left instead of a stain lasting impression , he put it as follows”…It is brightly-lit, glowing with health, radiant with hope , tidy ,clean and serves children decently.”