Médecins Sans Frontières says funding withdrawals are leaving patients to travel long distances for care and placing growing pressure on the few hospitals still operating
By Bunmi Yekini
People in war-torn Sudan are losing access to healthcare as international aid cuts force clinics and health centres to close, pushing the country’s already fragile medical system closer to breaking point, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Tuesday.
The medical charity said the withdrawal of humanitarian support was forcing patients to travel longer and more dangerous distances for treatment while placing increasing pressure on the few hospitals that remain operational.
Admissions to MSF-supported facilities in Zalingei and Rokero in Central Darfur rose 22.5% between January and April compared with the same period last year, as other healthcare providers scaled back or ended their operations, MSF said.
The situation worsened in May when 45 general healthcare centres in Central Darfur stopped receiving support after the organisation funding them ran out of money.
“War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response,” Muhammad Ibrahim, MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, said in a statement.
“MSF’s work in Sudan is privately funded. But 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.”
The crisis has also affected refugee camps in eastern Sudan.
In Tanedba camp in Gedaref state, which hosts about 18,400 refugees, the departure of a humanitarian organisation in June led to the closure of maternity and surgical wards. Pregnant women requiring Caesarean sections must now travel about three hours to reach the nearest city, MSF said.
The organisation has taken over emergency room services in the camp until the end of 2026.
Aid agencies have also been leaving Um Rakuba camp in Gedaref, where fewer than 10 organisations remain, compared with around 35 in 2021. The camp is home to about 17,000 refugees, most of them women and children.
“Our hospital in Um Rakuba is now the only lifeline left for both refugees and the local Sudanese community,” said Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF’s humanitarian affairs manager.
“But the cuts here go well beyond healthcare. Food rations are shrinking and protection programmes are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed.”
The closures have come amid a broader contraction in international humanitarian funding.
MSF said grants to many organisations working in Sudan ended in June after the United States announced the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2025. Although Washington remains Sudan’s largest donor and continues to fund the United Nations and other organisations, many healthcare providers have been unable to secure alternative financing, the charity said.
European and multilateral aid budgets have also come under pressure, with preliminary OECD data showing aid from European Union institutions fell 13.8% in 2025 and global humanitarian assistance declined by 35.8%, according to MSF.
The charity said those figures did not reflect equivalent cuts to Sudan specifically, where some European donors have maintained or increased their support, but showed a rapidly shrinking international funding environment.
“Closing a clinic does not remove a single patient. It just sends them to the next facility,” Sebastián Traficante, an MSF emergency coordinator 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.”
In Hamidiya displacement camp in Central Darfur, a health centre that once provided maternity, paediatric and mental health services is operating at sharply reduced capacity after an international aid organisation withdrew its support.
Daily patient visits have fallen from about 200 to around 40, while vaccination services have stopped, MSF said.
For many residents, the cost of reaching a functioning health facility has become prohibitive. A labourer in Darfur earns about $12 a day, while a $2 transport fare to a clinic can represent a significant financial burden for families already struggling to buy food.
“That money could buy food instead,” one patient told MSF. “If there is no food, there can be no health.”
In Tawila, where up to 600,000 displaced people are living despite the presence of about 50 non-governmental organisations, MSF operates the area’s only 200-bed hospital and is the only organisation able to mount a large-scale epidemic response, the charity said.
Malaria and malnutrition cases are already rising ahead of the peak rainy season. MSF said its teams admitted 191 severely malnourished children under five to an inpatient feeding centre in August, with nearly 22% also testing positive for malaria.
The United Nations estimates that 825,000 children under five could suffer from severe acute malnutrition, while 19.5 million people faced crisis-level hunger earlier this year.
Sudan’s $2.87 billion humanitarian response plan is only 41% funded, while an estimated 37% of the country’s health facilities are completely out of service, according to MSF.
As world leaders prepare to gather for the United Nations General Assembly, MSF urged governments and institutional donors to protect funding for essential health services and provide flexible transitional financing to prevent more facilities from shutting down.
“Donors must protect essential health services and provide sustained, flexible funding to organisations that depend on it,” Ibrahim said.