
HEALTHCARE facilities are under attack across Sudan as mass atrocities are being committed against civilians, humanitarian organisations warned this week.
Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday that 70 per cent of medical facilities in Sudan had either closed or were barely operational, with no end to the war in sight.
Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023 after tensions between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated into fighting across the country.
Some 40,000 people have been killed and nearly 13 million displaced, including to other countries, according to United Nations agencies. War has left many people facing food insecurity and at risk of famine and exposure to outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, which remains hard to contain because Sudan’s healthcare system has collapsed.
In its report, MSF warned that access to healthcare was nearly impossible due to systematic attacks, while the remaining operational facilities remain under constant threat.
“We call to all warring parties to stop violence against the civilian health facilities and civilian infrastructure and to facilitate a large-scale humanitarian response,” MSF head of emergency operations Michel-Olivier Lacharite told a news conference.
Save the Children also warned that attacks on hospitals had nearly tripled after two years of war. The group said that at least 933 people, including children, had been killed in the first half of this year.
This figure is a 60-fold increase over the deaths recorded during the same period of 2024, according to the group. Those killed were either seeking medical care or accompanying a loved one in hospital.
Major hospitals, clinics, health facilities, ambulances and medical convoys all suffered fatal attacks in a country where half the population requires humanitarian assistance, according to Save the Children.
“We are concerned that, in most cases, the hospitals that have come under fire also happen to be the only remaining hospitals in those areas, putting healthcare out of reach for millions, including displaced people,” said Francesco Lanino, deputy country director of programmes and operations for Save the Children in Sudan.
