Since April 2023, intense fighting in Sudan has led to violence leaving 11 million people in need of urgent health care.
Insecurity makes the delivery of health care increasingly challenging. More than two thirds of all main hospitals in affected areas are out of service, with the ones still functioning at risk of closure due to shortages of medical staff, supplies, safe water, and electricity. Repeated attacks on health care are preventing patients and health workers from reaching hospitals and getting treated, with health facilities, medical warehouses, transportation of supplies, and health workers being targeted. The disease surveillance system has also been disrupted, posing a serious challenge to detect and confirm infectious disease outbreaks.
Millions of people have been displaced since the beginning of the conflict, within Sudan but also in neighbouring countries, where people fled to seek safety, in Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Along with health partners, WHO is working intensively to coordinate the health response, reinforce disease surveillance, and distribute lifesaving medical supplies to people in need, despite the hampered access and insecurity. WHO is also working closely with the health authorities in the host countries to provide health care to the displaced.
