March (Web-only) 2000

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For the second straight day and the fourth time this month, the Samaritan's Purse hospital in southern Sudan has been bombed by a government warplane. Six Sudanese civilians were wounded, two of them critically, in the latest bombing at about 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. Eastern time) on Thursday.None of the Samaritan's Purse staff, including two American doctors who were finishing surgery when the first bomb fell, were injured.Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, expressed outrage at the ongoing attacks. "The Government of Sudan just continues to demonstrate that they are a terrorist nation," he said. "For more than 25 years, Samaritan's Purse has helped people all over the world recover from wars of hatred, but this is the first time we've ever been so blatantly and continuously attacked by the government of the very people we are trying to help."A government bomber made at least seven passes over the hospital compound on Thursday morning and dropped 10 bombs. None hit the hospital directly, but one exploded within 50 yards of the facility, destroying several houses in the surrounding village.Twenty hours earlier, on Wednesday afternoon, a government plane dropped two large bombs near overhanging rocks that the staff and villagers use as bomb shelters. A young girl and a man suffered shrapnel wounds in that attack.The hospital and village were previously hit by 15 bombs March 7 and by 11 explosives on March 1. A pregnant mother was killed and several civilians were seriously injured in the first attack, which damaged the hospital's tuberculosis ward. No one was injured in the second attack.After the second bombing, the patients and medical staff were temporarily evacuated from the hospital. ...