Sudan: Aid cuts leave millions without healthcare
Reduced funding is forcing the collapse of an already fragile health system
Amidst a brutal ongoing war and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, people in Sudan face reduced access to healthcare as facilities across the country close their doors as the impact of broad and historic international aid funding cuts by governments begin to take hold. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warns this withdrawal of support from an already chronically underfunded crisis is cutting off essential care and pushing the few remaining hospitals to breaking point. As world leaders gather at the UN General Assembly, governments and institutional donors must protect funding for essential health services in Sudan and provide flexible transitional financing where facilities are at risk of closure.
With aid organizations pulling out, local clinics are left without the funds or medicines needed to function. For patients, this means enduring long, dangerous journeys just to receive treatment. As they seek help wherever they can, the few hospitals still operational are absorbing the overflow: between January and April 2026, admissions in MSF-supported facilities in Zalingei and Rokero in Central Darfur jumped by 22.5 per cent compared to the same time last year. The situation has deteriorated even further in May when 45 general healthcare centres in Central Darfur stopped receiving support as the organization that had been providing resources lacked funding.
“…the cuts here go well beyond healthcare. Food rations are shrinking and protection programs are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed.”
Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF humanitarian affairs manager
“War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response,” says Muhammad Ibrahim, MSF country director in Sudan. “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.”
“Donors must protect essential health services and provide sustained, flexible funding to organizations that depend on it,” says Ibrahim.
Tanedba camp, in Gedaref state, is home to 18,400 refugees. The sudden departure of a humanitarian organization in June resulted in the closure of the camp’s maternity and surgical wards. Pregnant women who need caesarian sections now face three-hour journeys to the nearest city. MSF has now stepped in to run the emergency room through to the end of 2026.
In 2021, around 35 aid organizations were working in and around Um Rakuba camp in Gedaref state. Today, fewer than 10 remain. The camp now hosts around 17,000 refugees, mostly women and children.
“Our hospital in Um Rakuba is now the only lifeline left for both refugees and the local Sudanese community,” says Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF humanitarian affairs manager. “But the cuts here go well beyond healthcare. Food rations are shrinking and protection programs are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed.”
“Closing a clinic does not remove a single patient. It just sends them to the next facility.”
Sebastián Traficante, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur
After the U.S. government announced the closure of USAID in 2025, the grants many organizations relied on to work in Sudan ended in June this year. Many of the existing healthcare providers have been unable to find alternative funding to continue providing services, with health facilities closing in Sudan as a result.
Just as health providers faced the impending removal of U.S. support, many European governments also reduced their humanitarian assistance to people in Sudan. European and multilateral aid budgets are also shrinking globally. OECD preliminary data show that aid from EU institutions fell by 13.8 per cent in 2025, while several major European donors also reduced their overall aid spending. Globally, humanitarian aid fell by 35.8 per cent. These figures do not represent equivalent cuts to Sudan, where some European donors have maintained or increased their support. But they point to a sharply contracting international funding environment. In Sudan, that wider squeeze is compounding an already severe health crisis, as specific funding withdrawals and program closures reduce access to healthcare.
“Closing a clinic does not remove a single patient. It just sends them to the next facility,” says Sebastián Traficante, MSF emergency coordinator in Darfur. “After a longer and more expensive journey, patients often arrive in a much more serious condition and the hospital may already be full. MSF can reinforce some services, but we cannot absorb every closure.”
In Central Darfur’s Hamidiya displacement camp, a health centre that previously provided maternity, pediatric and mental healthcare is now operating at much reduced capacity after an international aid organization ended its support. Daily patient visits have dropped from 200 to barely 40 and vaccinations have stopped. The fall was not a sign people had become healthier. They had stopped making the journey because the centre could no longer treat them. A labourer in Darfur earns roughly $1.38, a day. The $2.77 transport fare to reach a working clinic therefore costs about two days’ wages, leaving residents to choose between healthcare and food. “That money could buy food instead,” says a patient. “If there is no food, there can be no health.”
Despite the presence of around 50 NGOs in Tawila, critical gaps persist for up to 600,000 displaced people. MSF runs the only 200-bed hospital in the area and is the only organization capable of mounting a large-scale epidemic response. Malaria and malnutrition cases are already rising despite limited rainfall, ahead of the peak of the rainy season – and we expect numbers to increase as the rain intensifies. In August, our teams admitted 191 severely malnourished children under five to our inpatient feeding centre and nearly 22 per cent also tested positive for malaria.
These closures are happening during a large-scale, severely underfunded humanitarian crisis. The UN reports that 825,000 children under five are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition and 19.5 million people faced crisis-level hunger earlier this year, meaning families either do not have enough food to eat or can only meet basic food needs by resorting to measures such as selling the assets they depend on to survive. Yet the UN’s $2.87 billion response plan is barely 41 per cent funded and 37 per cent of Sudan’s health facilities are estimated to be completely out of service.
