Aid cuts are forcing health facilities to close across Sudan, leaving a system already damaged by war with less capacity to meet rising demand for medical care.
The cuts follow the US closure of USAID last year. USAID had been Sudan’s largest donor, and existing grants to many organisations that depended on its funding ran out in June. Aid groups said on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, that an additional three dozen health facilities serving more than 400,000 people were due to close this year because of global aid cuts.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said funding reductions were forcing the closure of 36 facilities and sites it supports. The closures will cut off essential services for an estimated 473,700 people, it said. Some facilities have received bridge support, although that funding is expected to last only through the end of September.
Sudan’s war began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. More than 33 million people now require medical assistance, according to the humanitarian figures cited by aid organisations. The conflict has killed at least 59,000 people and displaced some 13 million.
Medical demand has continued to increase as services contract. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said admissions at facilities it supports in central Darfur rose by 22.5% between January and April 2026, compared with the same period last year. In May 2026, 45 healthcare centres in central Darfur stopped receiving funding.
Before the war, Sudan’s health system included 6,500 primary healthcare facilities and 300 public hospitals. By September 2024, the World Health Organization said up to 70-80% of facilities in the worst-hit areas had either shut or were barely functioning.
The decline has also reached camps for people displaced from their homes. The number of aid agencies operating in Um Rakuba camp has fallen from 35 in 2021 to less than 10. The camp currently hosts around 17,000 people, most of them women and children.
Tanedba camp in Gedaref state is home to 18,400 people who have fled their homes. Its maternity and surgical wards have closed. Pregnant women who need surgery to deliver a baby must travel three hours to the nearest city.
Conflict has compounded the pressure on medical care. Sudan recorded 1,620 people killed in attacks on medical facilities in 2025. Those deaths accounted for 82% of all global deaths from attacks on healthcare that year.
Food insecurity and outbreaks are adding to the need for care. The UN says more than 19.5 million people are experiencing “crisis levels” of food insecurity, while more than five million are facing “emergency levels of hunger”.
Measles has reached a “major outbreak level” in Darfur, where approximately 75% of measles patients are unvaccinated.
The wider aid environment has weakened alongside the loss of USAID funding. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said global aid fell 21.3% in 2025 compared with the previous year. The precise number of nonoperational health facilities across Sudan and the prospects for services once bridge support ends have not been provided.
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