At the beginning of last year, the humanitarian aid sector was rocked by widespread cuts to aid funding, mainly from the USA, Germany, United Kingdom, France and Japan. The fallout has been devastating. Aid agencies have closed their doors; jobs have been lost and people reliant on humanitarian care are struggling to survive. Because Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is independently funded, we’ve been able to continue our lifesaving work, but massive gaps remain where our partners have left. Every day that we continue working, we witness the impact of funding cuts on the communities and people we serve.
In war-torn Sudan – where the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is raging – this is more evident than ever.
In Hamidiya, Central Darfur, Safa has found safety after fleeing El-Fasher, and then Kabkabiya, in neighbouring North Darfur state. Her father died because of the war and her family scattered. She does not know where everyone ended up. “The situation here is relatively safe,” says Safa. “But there is no healthcare or work.”
Before the fighting she had completed two of the four years of her nursing training. She still hopes to finish. For now, many people, including Safa, focus their time on securing necessities like food. “The day is almost over, and I couldn’t get a single bite,” she says.
An international aid organisation has stopped supporting the healthcare centre near Safa. Reaching another working clinic costs around US$2 in transport. A labourer in Darfur earns roughly US$1 a day, meaning the journey costs about two days’ wages and leaves residents choosing between healthcare and food. “That money could buy food instead,” she says. “If there is no food, there can be no health.”
Vaccinations once available at the centre have stopped, while testing is now largely limited to malaria. Children are falling ill with other diseases, but many families cannot afford to seek treatment. The result: "Children die,” says Safa.
At the health centre in Hamidiya, Jaffer, a medical assistant, watched as services collapsed. He worked there for 15 years. The centre provided medical consultations, maternity and paediatric care, and nutrition and mental health services, and had a pharmacy that stocked medicines for chronic diseases. After funding cuts, only seven volunteers remain.
“Now the humanitarian organisation has left, we are in trouble,” says Jaffer. “There is no medication.”
“We used to receive between 150 and 200 patients a day,” he says. “Now we receive 30 to 40.”
This fall in numbers is not a sign that people have become healthier. They have stopped making the journey to a centre that can no longer treat them. The illnesses are still here — the services are not. The volunteers keep returning, protecting the equipment in the hope that another organisation will arrive.
Jaffer’s centre is part of a much wider retreat. In May, MSF reported that support had been withdrawn from more than 45 general healthcare centres in Central Darfur.
“Closing a clinic does not remove a single patient,” says Sebastián Traficante, MSF emergency coordinator in the Darfur region. “It sends them on to the next facility instead: later, after a longer and more expensive journey, and often in a more serious condition. The hospital they reach may already be full. MSF can reinforce some services, but we cannot absorb every closure.”
At Kas hospital in South Darfur state, Rahma spent 18 days beside her one-year-old child, who arrived critically ill with meningitis, malaria, and severe acute malnutrition. After more than two weeks of treatment, the child began to recover. “We travelled for hours to reach this hospital,” says Rahma. “The small hospital near our village closed its doors, and now there is nowhere nearby to seek care. Even if you find a doctor, there are no medicines. Without medicine, what can the doctor do?”
“When a child reaches the hospital after hours on the road, we may be treating several emergencies at once,” says Dr Saiful Islam, MSF medical coordinator in Sudan. “Severe illness requires urgent care, while severe malnutrition leaves a child with less strength to fight infection and recover. A clinic may close kilometres away, and the medical consequences eventually reach our wards.”
Kas is one hospital in one state. The UN estimates that 33.7 million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance in 2026. As of 11 August, its US$2.87 billion response plan was about 41 per cent funded. The World Health Organization says 21 million people lack access to health services, and 37 per cent of health facilities do not function.
“War is driving Sudan’s needs; funding cuts are shrinking the response,” says Muhammad Ibrahim, MSF head of mission in Sudan. “MSF’s work in Sudan is not reliant on funding by governments. But when funding disappears from other health services, clinics close, patients have fewer places to go, and pressure shifts to the facilities that remain, including ours. Donors must protect essential health services and provide sustained, flexible funding to organisations that depend on it.”
Sudan’s patients are still here. The clinics, medicines, and organisations they depend on must stay.
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