MSF: Access to healthcare in Sudan 'almost impossible' as attacks on healthcare facilities increase

Humanitarian organisations are sounding the alarm over attacks on healthcare facilities in Sudan, warning that 70 percent of them are closed or barely operational.

In a new report entitled ’Besieged, Attacked, Starved,’ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, said that access to healthcare is nearly impossible due to systematic attacks, while the remaining operational facilities are 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,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of emergency operations, on Thursday as the report was released.

Save the Children echoed those concerns, saying that attacks on hospitals tripled in the first half of this year, with more than 900 people killed while seeking healthcare or accompanying someone to hospital - 60 times the number of deaths compared to the same period last year. 

Major hospitals, clinics, health facilities, ambulances, and medical convoys all saw fatal attacks in a country where half the population requires humanitarian assistance, according to Save the Children.

MSF particularly warned against violence in El Fasher city, the capital of North Darfur province, that made it near impossible for residents there and nearby displacement camps to access healthcare.

As of April, only one hospital with surgical capacity remained partially operational, serving an estimated population of over one million. Over the past year, many patients and their caretakers have been killed while inside an MSF-supported medical facility.

International response

Lacharité also urged the international community to take stronger action to address the crisis in Sudan:

"We ask to international actors, UN member states and bodies, the states with influence over the warrying parties, who provide them militarily, economic, or diplomatic support: they must use all the leverage to prevent further mass atrocities, they must place protection of civilians at the core of their engagement with the warring parties.”

Last month, Sudan’s military agreed to a proposal from the United Nations for a week-long ceasefire in El Fasher to allow aid delivery, but the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) didn’t state whether it agrees on the proposal and took part in renewed clashes with the army in the southern part of the city this week.

Sudan’s civil war has been raging since April 2023 after simmering tensions between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary escalated to fighting across the country. Some 40,000 people have been killed, according to UN agencies, and nearly 13 million people have been displaced, including to other countries. Those who remain face food insecurity and risk of famine and are exposed to diseases including cholera, which remains hard to contain due to the collapsed healthcare system.