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Johanna Maria Fritz

Photographer

Johanna Maria Fritz

The forgotten

Al Naw Hospital in Omdurman is the last functioning public hospital in Sudan’s capital, providing care to dozens of war-injured civilians daily alongside regular patients. Since April 2023, Sudan has been devastated by a brutal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), following decades of an Islamist dictatorship, the 2019 revolution, and dashed hopes for democracy.

The hospital itself has been repeatedly attacked by RSF forces but remains a lifeline in the chaos. Resources are critically limited: there is not enough medicine, oxygen, equipment, or space, and many die from preventable infections due to these shortages. Refugees seek shelter within the hospital, and volunteers work tirelessly to help the poor access life-saving medicine. Most of the doctors are war victims or refugees themselves, living at the hospital for weeks and working day and night under harrowing conditions.

Johanna Maria Fritz

Johanna-Maria Fritz is an Inge Morath award-winning photographer, currently based Berlin, but is traveling the most of the year. She is a graduate of the German Ostkreuzschule for photography and is since beginning 2019 member of the Ostkreuz Agency. Her photography has appeared in National Geographic, der Spiegel, Newsweek China, Die Zeit and many others. For her photography she was awarded with the Inge Morath award, received the VG-Bild award and won the Lotto Brandenburg Prize and many more. She has exhibited worldwide in countries like Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland as well as China, Iceland, Ukraine and the US.