Sudan’s health clinics being forced to close due to global aid cuts

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These setbacks take place during a worsening humanitarian situation in a country torn by more than three years of war, aid groups said Tuesday.

The cuts come to a healthcare system that once numbered 6,500 primary healthcare facilities and 300 public hospitals, but that already was decimated in the first year and a half of war. 

By September 2024, the World Health Organisation said that up to 80 per cent of facilities in the worst-hit areas were either closed or barely functioning.

Sudan was plunged into war in April 2023 when tensions between the Saudi Arabia and Egypt-backed army and the United Arab Emirates-supported paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), escalated into full-scale fighting across the country. 

The war has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced some 13 million and pushed parts of the country into famine.

More aid organisations are pulling out as clinics are left without necessary medicine or funding, forcing patients to make dangerous journeys to get treatment, said Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Mesfin Teklu Tessema, senior technical health director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said: “These cuts are stripping away what little capacity remains, closing facilities, sending health workers home, and cutting off supply lines for medicines and nutrition treatment.”

He added: “The system is already stretched past its limit.” 

Mohammed Mahdi, IRC director for East Sudan, said funding cuts are forcing the closure of 36 IRC-supported facilities and sites, cutting off access to essential services for an estimated 473,700 people.

“A small number of facilities are able to keep running for a short period using other funding sources, but this bridge support is only expected to last through the end of September,” he said.

Healthcare providers couldn���t find alternative funding needed to provide healthcare services after grants to many organisations in Sudan ended in June following the announcement of massive US aid cuts last year, according to MSF. 

Some major European donors also decreased their aid spending.

The Um Rakuba camp in Gedaref State in eastern Sudan, which shelters around 17,000 displaced people, is now served by fewer than 10 aid organisations, down from about 35 in 2021, according to MSF.

The MSF-supported hospital there “is now the only lifeline left” for refugees and residents, said Fabrizio Locuratolo, MSF humanitarian affairs manager.