Sudan’s War on Health: Massacres in Hospitals, Deaths of Volunteers and a Humanitarian Collapse

Sudan, 29 November 2025 - In late October 2025, as RSF fighters closed in on El-Fasher, the city’s last functioning hospital, known as the Saudi Hospital, was overwhelmed with wounded people. With basic supplies exhausted, medics worked under dire conditions: one nurse recalled, “we had to jump over the dead bodies to get to the patients.”

On October 27, RSF fighters reportedly stormed the hospital, killing or abducting patients, bystanders, and staff, including doctors, nurses, and Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers. Witnesses described bodies scattered across wards, children among the deceased, and chaos as overhead drones hindered burials.

Since the conflict began in April 2023, the campaign against medical facilities in Darfur has been relentless. According to monitors, at least 130 attacks on healthcare have been recorded in North Darfur alone, 71% of them attributed to RSF.

The massacre isn’t an isolated tragedy; it caps a larger pattern of systematic destruction and violence, including airstrikes, drone attacks, shelling, forced closures, looting and execution of medics.

Aid Workers and Humanitarian Volunteers Under Fire

The violence has not spared those risking their lives to care for others. In a tragic development, five volunteers from the Sudanese Red Crescent were killed on October 27 while distributing food in Bara, North Kordofan, the IFRC confirmed. Another three are still missing. The victims were clearly marked with Red Crescent insignia and carried official identification.

In a public statement, the IFRC said it was “horrified” by the attack, insisting that “any attack on humanitarian teams is unacceptable,” and called again for respect of Red Cross/Red Crescent protective emblems under international humanitarian law.

These deaths join a growing toll: more than 20 Red Crescent staff and volunteers have been killed since the war began, according to humanitarian monitoring groups.

Collapse of Healthcare, Human Rights Violations, and Global Alarm