Sudan’s Healthcare System on Brink of Collapse Amid Aid Cuts, MSF Warns

Thirty-Seven Percent of Sudan Health Facilities Nonoperational

According to MSF, approximately 37 percent of Sudan’s health facilities are currently out of service. Mohammad Ibrahim, head of MSF in Sudan, stated that the organization has been overwhelmed as funding for parallel humanitarian efforts evaporates, pushing increasing numbers of patients toward a rapidly shrinking network of operational clinics.

“Donors must protect essential health services and provide sustained, flexible funding to organisations that depend on it,” Ibrahim said in the report.

The medical charity attributes these facility closures primarily to the shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whose Sudan grants officially expired in June, alongside a severe, year-over-year reduction in financial support from European institutions. Globally, MSF noted that international aid funding by governments has dropped by 35.8 percent over the past year, leaving the United Nations’ response plan for Sudan funded at just 41 percent.

Refugee Safety Nets Dismantled Across Borders

The humanitarian fallout extends directly into neighboring countries hosting individuals fleeing the conflict. Fabrizio Locuratolo, humanitarian affairs manager at an MSF hospital in Um Rakuba, explained that the funding crisis reaches far beyond clinical medicine.

“Food rations are shrinking and protection programmes are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed,” Locuratolo said.

These cuts arrive against the backdrop of a grinding civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since the conflict erupted in April 2023, fighting has killed at least 59,000 people and displaced approximately 14 million citizens internally and across international borders.

UN General Assembly Appeal for Emergency Stopgap Funding

With the United Nations General Assembly currently convening, MSF has issued a direct appeal to attending member governments to safeguard existing health budgets and deploy immediate stopgap financing. The charity emphasizes that without targeted financial interventions, the remaining operational hospitals and mobile clinics will shutter entirely, compounding a crisis where roughly 19.5 million people faced acute hunger earlier in the year.