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Geneva \u2014 Three years of war in Sudan have shattered essential services like water and health, and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 plunged the country into the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, the country\u2019s World Health Organisation (WHO) representative says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, 41 percent of Sudan\u2019s population \u2013 21 million people \u2013 still require urgent health assistance for survival,\u201d Dr Shible Sahbani, WHO Representative in Sudan, said at an April 10 UN press conference in Geneva, speaking by phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite recent returns, 13.6 million people still remain displaced within Sudan or in neighbouring countries,\u201d said. Sahbani, who returned recently from Khartoum on an official visit.<\/p>\n
With a land mass of 2.376 million square kilometres, Sudan is Africa\u2019s third biggest country in area.<\/p>\n
\n The continuing armed conflict began on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, with other warring parties involved, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn the three years of war, WHO has verified 217 attacks on health care with 2,052 deaths and 810 injuries,\u201d said the WHO doctor, who is from Morocco.<\/p>\n Of the attacks, 16 took place in the past 3 months, leading to 194 deaths and 320 injuries.<\/p>\n Hospitals overflowing with patients<\/strong><\/p>\n Sahbani said hospitals are overflowing with patients yet operating at less-than-optimal capacity; once-overflowing medical warehouses have been ruined and left as skeletal structures.<\/p>\n While fighting has subsided in Khartoum and Al Jazirah, it has intensified around Darfur and Kordofan.<\/p>\n There, the population faces high protection risks and extreme limitations of access to basic services, mainly health care, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since 2025, there has been an increase in the frequency and deadliness of attacks.<\/p>\n The WHO doctor said that among the casualties of the attack was a woman in labour, killed when the ambulance transporting her to the hospital was hit; a doctor was killed while making rounds in a paediatric ward.<\/p>\n He also cited a scrub nurse who was killed assisting in a caesarean section, a mother injured while on the operating table for a caesarean delivery and children who were killed within the walls of a hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cDisease outbreaks are widespread. Malaria, dengue, measles, polio, hepatitis E, and diphtheria are reported from several states,\u201d said Sahbani.<\/p>\n Since April 2023, the WHO has maintained continuity of health services in Sudan, with more than 4.1 million people treated in hospitals, primary health care facilities, and mobile clinics.<\/p>\n
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