The World Health Organisation (WHO) warns that a catastrophic cholera outbreak in Sudan is spiralling uncontrollably this year, claiming nearly 1,100 lives since January and afflicting almost 49,000 others, overwhelming an already crippled healthcare system amid a brutal conflict.
All of Sudan’s 18 states have reported cholera cases, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva, adding: “Over 100,000 cases and more than 2,741 deaths have been reported since July 2024.”
He said: “48,768 cholera cases and 1,094 deaths have been reported from 1 January to 11 August 2025.”
Darfur has been particularly hard-hit since the first case was reported in South Darfur on 29 May 2025. “The disease has now spread to 28 localities across all five Darfur states.”
According to the spokesperson, 6,491 cases and 130 deaths have been reported, and 52% of all deaths in the Darfur states were reported from South Darfur State.
He said efforts are underway to urgently launch a cholera vaccination campaign in priority localities of South Darfur.
El Fasher in North Darfur is suffering a “severe humanitarian and public-health crisis” driven by siege, displacement, and food shortages, with cholera adding pressure on limited services, Lindmeier noted.
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Nationwide, 38% of health facilities are nonfunctional and 62% are only partially working, he added.
He said that child vaccination rates have dropped from more than 90% in 2022 to just 48%. Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 children have been admitted to stabilisation centres this year for severe acute malnutrition with complications.
WHO has verified 177 attacks on health care facilities since April 2023, leading to 1,176 deaths and 362 injuries. Lindmeier said WHO continues to deliver supplies and support health centres, but access remains severely restricted.
The south is starving
At least 46 people, mostly women and children, have died from malnutrition in Sudan’s South Kordofan state over the past two months, Sudan’s Doctors Network said Saturday, as the war-torn region faces worsening hunger and medical shortages.
The network said its teams “monitored 46 deaths in South Kordofan due to malnutrition during July and August, most of them women and children.”
It added: “More than 19,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are in urgent need of supplementary nutrition.”
The group condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war, calling it “a crime against humanity and a war crime under international law,” while highlighting the dire humanitarian situation in the cities of Kadugli and Dalanj.
It accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of maintaining a siege on civilians, denouncing “the continued siege and starvation of civilians” and urging “the immediate lifting of the blockade and the opening of safe humanitarian corridors to allow unrestricted delivery of food and medicine.”
The network appealed to “local, regional, and international authorities, the World Health Organisation, and all relevant humanitarian agencies to intervene immediately to save the lives of pregnant and breastfeeding women and children before it is too late.”
Clashes between the Sudanese army and the RSF have intensified across Sudan’s three Kordofan states in recent months.
The war, which erupted in April 2023, has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced over 14 million, according to the UN and local authorities. Independent research from U.S. universities, however, estimates the death toll could be as high as 130,000.
