Sudan faces health crisis as conflict devastates medical infrastructure

Repeated attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel have severe consequences amidst the worsening food crisis. Healthcare centers are crucial for preventing, detecting, and treating malnutrition. Their ability to function is vital for the most vulnerable, including pregnant and lactating mothers and children under the age of five.  

“The situation in health clinics is beyond words,” said Amelie Chbat, who oversees health programs for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Sudan. “The injured lack medicines, food, and water, and the elderly, women, and children are without essential treatments like dialysis or diabetes medications. And the situation is deteriorating.”

The number of reports of looting and vandalizing healthcare facilities, threats and physical violence against staff and patients, and the denial of healthcare services to civilians is increasing. Fighters and civilians die because they are prevented from receiving medical attention in time. Entire communities are cut off from vital services, such as maternity care, childcare, and vaccinations. 

The ICRC reminds the parties to the conflict that such actions will have severe and long-lasting consequences for the entire Sudanese population and that protecting healthcare is an obligation under international humanitarian law. 

Medical personnel must be allowed to carry out their duties according to medical ethics in a safe and secure environment. Deliberately attacking medical personnel or medical facilities constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law. 

About the ICRC
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a neutral, impartial and independent organization with an exclusively humanitarian mandate that stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It helps people around the world affected by armed conflict and other violence, doing everything it can to protect their lives and dignity and to relieve their suffering, often alongside its Red Cross and Red Crescent partners.