In a particularly heinous attack, a hospital located next to residential areas and a livestock market in North Darfur state was hit last Friday, killing or wounding at least 97 civilians.
Attacks on medical facilities, personnel and supplies violate international human rights and have left Sudan's health system “hanging by a thread,” the UN agency warned.
“Hospitals, health centres, ambulances and other medical resources are a lifeline for the people of Sudan, who endure incessant fighting and frequent displacement due to the ongoing war,” he said in a statement.
“However, their tenacity and dedication are rewarded with bombings, harassment, intimidation, injury and death.”
Protecting health care
The WHO has documented 88 attacks on healthcare facilities since the war broke out last April between rival armies: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The UN agency stressed the obligations of parties to the conflict under international humanitarian law to ensure that health care, supplies and medical personnel are protected from harm.
“We call for all health workers, patients and facilities to be protected at all times,” he said, stressing the need to silence the guns to ensure the health system can be rebuilt.
The conflict has left more than 18,800 people dead and 33,000 injured, and forced more than 10 million people to flee their homes, including five million children. Sudan is also suffering from unprecedented levels of food insecurity: 25.6 million people, more than half of the population, are suffering from acute hunger.
A destroyed room at Aalia Specialist Hospital in Omdurman, Sudan.
Cases are increasing
The agency also reported that less than 25 percent of health facilities in provinces affected by the fighting are functional, while only 45 percent are functional in other regions.
UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Toby Harward described the impact on civilians, particularly children.
Vulnerable people are dying in hard-to-reach places when they cannot access functioning hospitals and clinics, he said from Chad, having recently returned from the Darfur region, which has borne the brunt of the fighting.
Many children are showing cough, cold and other symptoms of illness, including flu, he told a reporter in New York via video link, and last week alone 77 children were admitted to various hospitals for acute malnutrition and medical complications.
“These cases…are increasing weekly,” he added.
