US doctor killed in front of family in Sudan amid fighting

A U.S. doctor who served as a professor at the University of Khartoum was stabbed to death in front of his family in Sudan as the U.S. government is evacuating private Americans amid fighting between two military commanders in the African nation.

Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman, a 49-year-old dual national of the U.S. and Sudan, was trying to escape the capital of Khartoum with his ailing parents, American wife and two American children last week when he was attacked Tuesday, his friends told The Associated Press on Sunday. 

A band of strangers surrounded Sulieman in his yard and fatally stabbed him to death as he tried to flee with his family. Friends suspect that the group was motivated by robbery, a common occurrence in the capital during the fighting.

Doctors at Khartoum’s Soba Hospital, where Sulieman worked, were unable to save his life.

Sulieman, a U.S.-born gastroenterologist, is the second confirmed U.S. citizen to die in Sudan's fighting.

The doctor divided his time between working in Iowa City, Iowa, and in Khartoum, where he directed the medical faculty at the University of Khartoum and founded and led the Sudanese American Medical Association, a humanitarian organization.

In Sudan, he organized and drove medical supplies to the countryside, arranged rural midwife training and helped bring cardiologists to perform free surgeries.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.