Sudan: WHO Representative visits Khartoum’s damaged referral hospitals as the Government prepares to restore critical health services

Country: Sudan Source: World Health Organization 7 September 2026, Khartoum, Sudan – World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Sudan Dr Abdinasir Abubakar visited three of Khartoum State’s main referral and teaching hospitals on 6 September 2026, accompanied by Dr Mohamoud Al Badri, Director General of the Khartoum State Ministry of Health and the State’s Acting Minister of Health, to assess the extent of the damage sustained during the conflict and to discuss with the State authorities and hospital management on priorities and plans for restoring essential health services. Before the conflict, Khartoum Teaching Hospital, the Ophthalmology Hospital and the Dental Hospital served patients from Khartoum State and accepted referrals from across Sudan. All three are referral and teaching hospitals. Khartoum Teaching Hospital served as one of Sudan’s main general referral hospitals. The Ophthalmology Hospital, established in 1889, is the oldest health facility in the country, and in addition to specialized eye care, like the Dental Hospital, also served as a training centre for the next generation of specialists. At all three hospitals, the delegation witnessed extensive damage to buildings and medical equipment. Operating theatres have been destroyed, imaging equipment lost and several wards have collapsed. Entire blocks and departments are out of service. The buildings need urgent structural repair before patients can be admitted safely. The Khartoum State Ministry of Health has started renovation and rehabilitation work on all three facilities, but much more needs to be done before the hospitals can resume their specialized functions. Despite these conditions, hospital staff were present at every site, treating patients in the parts of the buildings that remain usable. Physicians, nurses, technicians and administrators met with the delegation and described what each department needs to reopen for service. Dr Al Badri underscored to the WHO Representative and his team the urgent need to rehabilitate the three facilities and called on WHO and partners to help mobilize the resources needed to expedite their restoration of reopening. “The damage to these hospitals is immense, and restoring them will take the combined effort of the state and federal health authorities, WHO and other health partners, ” said WHO Representative in Sudan Dr Abdinasir Abubakar. “What gives that effort a solid foundation is the commitment of the staff who we met today and who are ready to return to work as soon as they have a workable environment and the equipment to work in it. ” The three hospitals are representative of the wider situation in conflict-affected cities across Sudan. Khartoum State’s other major hospitals have sustained damage of a similar nature and scale, and staff face the same constraints. The visit served, therefore, as a sample of the needs of the State’s hospital network rather than a ranking of its priorities. Restoring the three hospitals will require rehabilitation of buildings, replacement of medical equipment, restoration of water, power and waste management systems, and support for the health workforce. The Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), the Khartoum State Ministry of Health, WHO and other international partners will need to coordinate their assessments of the need, agree on priorities and sequence the reopening of departments so that the population regains access to specialized care as soon as possible. WHO will work with the FMoH and Khartoum State Ministry of Health to document the needs of priority hospitals and advocate with donors and health partners to seek the resources to rehabilitate and reopen them. More than three years of conflict have devastated Sudan’s health system, with damage, looting and loss of staff leading to full or partial closure of some health facilities across the country. Restoring fully functioning referral hospitals in Khartoum is a critical prerequisite for the re-establishing an effective referral system on which primary health care facilities across Sudan depend for access to specialized and higher-level care.

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