Q&A: Doctor Describes How Sudanese Bombers Terrorized Hospital
"The loud screech of the jet was almost immediately followed by the loud boom of the explosion."
Tom Catena, a Catholic missionary doctor from the United States, is the only trained surgeon in the rebel-held part of the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. At the Mother of Mercy Hospital in the village of Gidel, he and his staff treat bullet and shrapnel wounds, malaria, leprosy, thyroid disease, burns, and cancer. Catena has performed dozens of amputations, many of them on children.
For years, the hospital was spared the bombs and rockets of Sudanese government aircraft. Until now.
On May 1 and 2, Sukhoi and Antonov warplanes pounded the area directly around the hospital with 11 bombs and rockets. The explosions knocked doors off their hinges and damaged windows and screens in the hospital, Catena says, but didn't kill anyone. Some
