Paramilitary fighters in Sudan have systematically targeted medical facilities in brutal assaults that the United Nations warns could constitute war crimes, according to an investigation by BBC World.
The inquiry details how combatants from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have repeatedly raided, shelled, and looted clinics and major hospitals across the war-torn northeast African nation, driving doctors from wards and leaving thousands of critically wounded civilians without lifesaving treatment.
Drawing on verified video footage, satellite imagery, and witness accounts from frontline medical staff, the broadcaster established a disturbing pattern of calculated incursions into protected humanitarian infrastructure. Rather than isolated incidents of collateral damage sustained during clashes with the regular Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the evidence reveals deliberate assaults designed to terrorise personnel and strip facilities of medicines, generators, and surgical supplies.
United Nations warns of war crime culpability
The findings have drawn stern condemnation from the highest levels of the global body. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the repeated and organised attacks on healthcare centres, patients, and medical workers may amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Under the Geneva Conventions, hospitals and humanitarian personnel enjoy explicit protections during armed conflict. The intentional targeting of such institutions is categorised among the gravest breaches of the laws of war. Mr Türk stressed that senior military commanders who direct, facilitate, or fail to prevent such actions must be held criminally responsible, warning that the prevailing climate of impunity only emboldens further atrocities.
Healthcare system pushed to brink of total collapse
The armed conflict, which erupted in April 2023 following a bitter power struggle between rival generals, has precipitated what aid agencies describe as the world’s most catastrophic humanitarian emergency. Sudan’s healthcare network has effectively collapsed, with humanitarian groups estimating that more than 75 per cent of facilities in conflict-affected regions are entirely out of service.
In urban centres such as Khartoum and across besieged cities in North Darfur, doctors and nurses described working under constant terror. Witnesses reported fighters executing patients within hospital corridors, abducting personnel for forced field operations, and repurposing civilian ambulances to transport ammunition. The resulting paralysis of medical services has coincided with catastrophic food insecurity, leaving malnourished children and chronic disease patients with nowhere to turn as cholera and malaria sweep through overcrowded displacement settlements.
Global pressure mounts over escalating atrocities
International humanitarian groups have demanded that foreign governments take decisive steps to sanction the perpetrators and enforce unimpeded access for relief convoys. Global emergency appeals remain severely underfunded; humanitarians have warned that despite hundreds of millions of dollars in pledges, including support from the Australian Government, logistical blockades and armed violence continue to strangle the distribution of critical medical supplies.
Diplomatic monitors have urged the International Criminal Court, which already holds an active mandate in Darfur, to formally integrate the deliberate destruction of healthcare networks into its ongoing prosecutorial probes. Without concrete measures to deter combatants, analysts warn that Sudan’s remaining medical infrastructure will be completely extinguished.