Funding for Sudan health crisis only a third of what is needed this year

Health funding for humanitarian response in Sudan, the world’s worst crisis, has received only a third of the tens of millions of pounds it needs for this year.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also received less than 15 percent of the money it needs to carry out its operations, its representative in Sudan said in a media briefing on Wednesday.

The humanitarian appeal’s health sector has only been 35 percent funded, ⁠Dr Shible Sahbani said, as the country contends with its third cholera outbreak in three years. The outbreak has killed 120 people, with another 1,102 suspected cases since May in Kordofan state in central Sudan, he added.

Three years of war has “completely devastated” Sudan’s health system, Dr Sahbani said. More than 70 per cent of Sudan’s hospitals are destroyed, according to the International Rescue Committee, leaving millions without access to essential medical care.

Aid funding cuts from the US and elsewhere, ongoing conflict and the rainy season are also preventing humanitarian teams from accessing the people most in need, the WHO said.

Cholera used to come cyclicly every three years, Dr Sahbani said but now the country faces near-continuous outbreaks. It is less than four months since the WHO declared an end to an outbreak that began in July 2024, one which spread to all 18 states, infecting more than 124,000 people and killing 3,573.

“The eastern Mediterranean accounts for less than 10 per cent of the global population, yet it accounts for nearly half of the world’s humanitarian burden,” said Dr Hanan Balkhy, Regional Director for WHO in the region, which includes Sudan, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. “Put simply, one in every two people affected by humanitarian crises worldwide is in this region.”

Underfunding, Dr Balkhy added, means “mothers unable to access maternity care, children missing vaccinations, patients without essential medicines and communities left vulnerable to outbreaks.”

Escalating conflict, as well as disrupted health services, unsafe water and sanitation and restricted humanitarian access are leaving civilians increasingly vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and violence in Sudan’s Kordofan region.Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war for the past three years that has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes and created the world’s worst humanitarian and health crises, according to the UN.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International accu the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, one of the military factions involved in the war, had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its campaign to capture the western city of El Fasher.

Crimes like murder, torture, rape, enslavement and sexual slavery, were carried out as part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians and amounted to crimes against humanity, the Amnesty report said. They also accused the RSF of deliberately targeting children in North Darfur state. The RSF has previously denied all allegations against it.

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project