37% of health facilities in Sudan out of service in 2026: WHO

Mohammed Hamood Ali Al Ragawi and Lina Altawell

The World Health Organization said Friday that 37% of health facilities in Sudan were out of service in 2026.

The figure was given during a news conference by Altaf Musani, director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Interventions Department, at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva, where he addressed the impact of attacks on health care in 29 countries and territories.

Musani said the organization recorded more than 900 attacks on health care in those areas between January and August 2026, killing at least 900 people and injuring more than 1,400 others, at a rate of more than four attacks per day.

“Across Sudan’s 18 states, 37% of health facilities remain non-functional. Health facilities, ambulances, patients and health workers have been repeatedly attacked, further reducing access to health care, particularly in conflict-affected areas where hospitals are only partially functioning or have closed due to the destruction of facilities and equipment,” the organization said in a separate statement.

Musani stressed the need to go beyond merely counting attacks and focus on their impact, including disrupted services, patients denied care, and delayed treatments, surgeries and referrals.

“This is not simply about improving data, but about making the human consequences visible, and using evidence to protect healthcare and the people who depend on it, as well as to hold parties to conflicts accountable,” he said.

He renewed the organization’s call for the protection of health care, stressing that “healthcare is not a target.”

In an April 2026 report, the organization said that after three years of war, Sudan is facing “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” with 34 million people in need of assistance and 21 million lacking health services.

The organization said it had verified 217 attacks on health care since the start of the war, causing 2,052 deaths and 810 injuries.

The statement came amid escalating fighting in the Kordofan and Darfur regions and Blue Nile state.

Sudan has been gripped by a war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, which, according to UN and international estimates, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 13 million.

The three states of the Kordofan region — North, West and South — have witnessed fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces since Oct. 25.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces over disagreements about the group’s integration into the military.