Medical Charity Warns Sudan's Health System Is Collapsing After Global Aid Funding Cuts
- Médecins Sans Frontières warned that healthcare facilities across Sudan are shutting down as global funding dries up
- MSF recorded a 22.5% jump in admissions at facilities it supports in central Darfur between January and April 2026
- In one Gedaref camp, the number of aid agencies operating dropped from 35 in 2021 to fewer than 10, leaving thousands without care
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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that Sudan's healthcare system is on the verge of total collapse, as sweeping cuts to international aid funding force clinics and hospitals across the country to shut their doors.
The medical charity said dozens of organisations lost their funding after the United States, the single largest donor to Sudan, shut down USAID last year. Many of those organisations had been relying on USAID grants that ran out in June 2026.
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According to BBC, European governments have also been pulling back on international assistance at the same time, compounding the crisis. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that global international aid fell by 21.3% in 2025 compared to the year before.
Sudan has been gripped by a civil war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, with more than 33 million people requiring medical assistance.
Aid collapse pushes patients to dangerous journeys
MSF said the closure of frontline health services is placing enormous pressure on the facilities that remain open. Patients are being forced to travel long and dangerous distances to reach care, often arriving in a far worse condition than if they had been treated locally.
"War is driving Sudan's needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response," said Muhammad Ibrahim, the charity's head of operations in Sudan. "When funding disappears from other health services, clinics close, patients have fewer places to go, and pressure shifts to the facilities that remain, including ours."
Sebastián Traficante, MSF's emergency co-ordinator in Darfur, said:
"After a longer and more expensive journey, patients often arrive in a much more serious condition, and the hospital may already be full."
Between January and April 2026, MSF recorded a 22.5% rise in admissions at facilities it supports in central Darfur compared to the same period in 2025. In May alone, 45 healthcare centres in the region stopped receiving funding.
In Gedaref state, the Tanedba camp, which shelters 18,400 displaced people, lost its maternity and surgical wards after a humanitarian organisation pulled out in June. MSF now runs an emergency room there, but pregnant women requiring surgery must travel three hours to the nearest city.
Camps left with skeleton support
The situation in the Um Rakuba camp, also in Gedaref, shows how dramatically the aid presence has shrunk. The number of agencies working there fell from 35 in 2021 to fewer than 10. Around 17,000 people, the majority of them women and children, currently live in the camp.
MSF's UK humanitarian representative Liz Harding said: "If support does not increase, more patients will face longer journeys, fewer treatment options and greater risk of arriving too late for care."
Beyond the funding crisis, violence against health workers continued throughout 2025. MSF said Sudan recorded 1,620 deaths in attacks on medical facilities last year, accounting for 82% of all such deaths globally.
The United Nations separately reported that more than 19.5 million people in Sudan are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity, with over five million facing emergency-level hunger. At least 11 people were killed in a drone strike on the army-controlled town of Umm Ruwaba in North Kordofan state on Tuesday, according to local reports, underlining that the fighting shows no sign of slowing.
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Legit.ng earlier reported that More than 20 civilians were killed and many more wounded on August 11, 2026, during fighting in Geisan town in Sudan's Blue Nile State, according to local sources on the ground who spoke to UN.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the escalating violence forced roughly 2,500 residents to flee the town on the same day, adding to the growing number of people displaced by Sudan's ongoing conflict.
Source: Legit.ng
