Funding Cuts Force Health Facilities to Close Across Sudan

By Mintesinot Nigussie  |  September 9, 2026

Funding shortages are forcing health facilities across Sudan to close or sharply reduce services, leaving patients with longer and more dangerous journeys to treatment as the country’s war-driven humanitarian crisis intensifies.

The UN’s 2.87 billion US dollars humanitarian response plan is only 41 percent funded, while an estimated 37 percent of health facilities across Sudan are completely out of service. The crisis is also being compounded by severe food insecurity, with 19.5 million people facing crisis-level hunger earlier this year and 825,000 children under five expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition.

Central Darfur has been among the areas hardest hit by the withdrawal of funding. Forty-five general healthcare centres stopped receiving support in May after the organisation providing resources ran out of funding. At MSF-supported facilities in Zalingei and Rokero, admissions rose 22.5 percent between January and April 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier.

The reduction in available services is forcing patients to travel further and pay more to receive treatment. In Darfur, a labourer earns roughly one US dollar a day, while transport to a functioning clinic can cost two US dollars, creating a direct trade-off between healthcare and food for families with limited incomes.

"Closing a clinic does not remove a single patient. It just sends them to the next facility," said 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."

The strain is particularly acute in displacement camps. In Hamidiya camp in Central Darfur, daily visits to a health centre have fallen from about 200 to barely 40 after an international aid organisation ended its support. The facility has sharply reduced maternity, paediatric and mental health services, while vaccinations have stopped.

In Tawila, critical humanitarian gaps remain for as many as 600,000 displaced people despite the presence of around 50 NGOs. MSF operates the area’s only 200-bed hospital and is the only organisation capable of mounting a large-scale epidemic response. In August, its teams admitted 191 children under five with severe acute malnutrition, nearly 22 percent of whom also tested positive for malaria.

The withdrawal of humanitarian organisations has also disrupted healthcare in Gedaref state. In Tanedba camp, home to 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 now face journeys of about three hours to the nearest city. MSF has taken over the camp’s emergency room through the end of 2026.

Um Rakuba camp has seen a similar reduction in humanitarian presence. About 35 aid organisations were working in and around the camp in 2021, compared with fewer than 10 today. The camp hosts about 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," said Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF humanitarian affairs manager.

The funding pressure intensified after the US government announced the closure of USAID in 2025. Grants supporting many organisations operating in Sudan ended in June 2026, leaving healthcare providers struggling to secure alternative funding. Although the US remains the largest donor to Sudan through funding to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and other organisations, many existing healthcare providers have been unable to maintain their services.

The funding contraction is part of a wider decline in international assistance. Preliminary OECD data show that aid from EU institutions fell 13.8 percent in 2025, while global humanitarian aid declined 35.8 percent. MSF noted that these figures do not represent equivalent cuts to Sudan, where some European donors have maintained or increased their support, but said they demonstrate the increasingly constrained international funding environment.

"War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response," said Muhammad Ibrahim, MSF head of mission in Sudan. "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."

MSF is calling on governments and institutional donors to protect financing for essential health services and provide sustained, flexible transitional funding where facilities are at risk of closure, as remaining providers face rising demand from patients displaced by the collapse of other services.

Source: FSX Business News