The conceptual paper The Impact of War on the Health Services and NGOs in Sudan: 2023–2025: An Update, published in the International Journal of Food, Nutrition and Public Health, examines how Sudan’s war has affected health services and NGO operations between 2023 and 2025. Published on 29 June 2025, it draws on secondary data, key informant interviews, humanitarian reports, conference proceedings and the authors’ experience. The paper focuses on health-system collapse, humanitarian response, community and NGO roles, and priorities for rebuilding a resilient and decentralized health system.
Key Insights
Sudan entered the war with an already fragile health system, including only four doctors per 10,000 people, underinvestment in primary care and heavy reliance on out-of-pocket spending.
By June 2024, around 80% of hospitals in the most conflict-affected areas were non-functional. In Khartoum, only 16% of health facilities were operational, while more than 100 attacks on healthcare had been verified.
The crisis has severely affected women and children. Around 14 million children required humanitarian assistance, while more than 4 million women were reported at risk of sexual violence and exploitation.
Sudan is facing a major hunger and disease crisis. Page 5 reports 26 million people facing acute hunger, including 755,000 in catastrophic conditions, alongside outbreaks of cholera, measles, malaria, dengue and other diseases.
NGO and humanitarian operations have been constrained by insecurity, limited funding and access barriers. Only 48% of the UN’s US$2.7 billion humanitarian funding target for 2024 had been met.
Local organizations remain central to the response. By 2024, the Sudanese Red Crescent Society had reached more than 124,000 people with WASH services, 150,000 with food assistance and 100,000 with health services.
The paper proposes a Comprehensive Health Action Plan focused on decentralization, workforce development, epidemic preparedness, digital health, financing reform and stronger community participation.
Pages 8–10 emphasize rebuilding through stronger governance, sustainable financing, workforce protection and the WHO health-system building blocks, with resilience understood through absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacities.
There is a numerical inconsistency on page 3: the paper states that more than 11.3 million people were displaced, including 8.1 million internally and 2.9 million across borders. These two figures total 11.0 million rather than 11.3 million.
