Sudan’s healthcare system on brink of collapse, MSF warns

By Al Jazeera Staff and DPA. Published On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026.

Key points

• Mohammad Ibrahim, head of MSF in Sudan, notes the organisation has been overwhelmed as funding for other aid efforts disappears.
• Fabrizio Locuratolo, humanitarian affairs manager at an MSF hospital in Um Rakuba, notes the cuts extend beyond healthcare.
• It pressed governments at the United Nations General Assembly.
• The report notes that the world is witnessing "historic international aid funding cuts by governments", with global humanitarian aid reduced by 35.8 percent since last year.
• "Donors must protect essential health services and provide sustained, flexible funding to organisations that depend on it, " he notes in the report.

War-torn Sudan's healthcare system is facing a deep crisis as international aid funding has dwindled, cutting millions off from essential services, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has cautioned.

Notably, the medical charity remarked on Tuesday that a greater number of patients are being pushed towards a shrinking number of facilities, even as certain regions have seen intensifying violence and displacement with the country's war escalating.

It pressed governments at the United Nations General Assembly. It is at present convening, to protect health funding and provide stopgap financing for facilities at risk of closing.

Regarding 37 percent of Sudan's health facilities are out of service and the UN's response plan for the country is only 41 percent funded, MSF stated, with some 19.5 million individuals facing crisis levels of hunger earlier this year.

"Food rations are shrinking and protection programmes are being dismantled, pulling away the last safety nets and leaving refugees completely exposed, " he remarked.

MSF linked the closures to the shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whose Sudan grants concluded in June, and a significant reduction of aid from European institutions year-over-year.

Meanwhile, the report notes that the world is witnessing "historic international aid funding cuts by governments", with global humanitarian aid reduced by 35.8 percent since last year.

In practice, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Backing Forces (RSF) has killed at least 59, 000 residents and displaced regarding 14 million since it erupted in April 2023.

For now, sudan's healthcare system on brink of collapse, MSF warns remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.