Geneva / Human Rights Council
19 September 2025
As part of its participation in the 60th session of the UN Human RightsCouncil, the Sudanese Union of Development and Relief Organizations co-organized a high-level international event at the Palais des Nations in
Geneva under the title “The Human Rights Situation in Africa.” The event gathered senior officials, international experts, African ministers, state delegations, civil society leaders, journalists, and representatives of international and African human rights organizations.
During the event, the Union presented a working paper on the human rights situation in Sudan. Its President, Dr. Inas Himedan, focused specifically on crimes committed by the Sudanese army against civilians, particularly the deliberate targeting of the health sector. She warned that these violations have caused the collapse of Sudan’s health system,
depriving the population of essential medical, preventive, and
therapeutic services needed to safeguard their right to health.
Dr. Himedan expressed her profound disappointment, shared by civilians in Sudan, at the international community’s failure to protect civilians and to ensure the functioning of the health sector. She noted that this failure raises serious concerns about the rapid spread of preventable diseases across Sudan.
Highlighting the catastrophic collapse of healthcare and the inability to provide services due to the ongoing conflict, Dr. Himedan called on the UN and the international community to intensify their engagement and to recognize this collapse as a crime against civilians. She stressed that it constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law, with particularly devastating consequences for women and children.
She underlined that Sudan is facing one of the world’s worst
humanitarian crises, as classified by the UN, pointing to the deliberate destruction of health facilities. She echoed the words of Christopher Lockyear, Secretary-General of Médecins Sans Frontières, who earlier this year stated:
“The war in Sudan is a war on people – a reality that
grows clearer every day.”
According to Dr. Himedan, more than 30.4 million people are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including 15 million displaced persons, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis for children. Two-thirds of hospitals have been destroyed or rendered non- functional, and 70–80% have been forced to close. Preventable diseases such as cholera and diarrhea have spread rapidly, with over
300,000 cases and 4,478 deaths recorded by August 2025.
The situation of women and children is especially dire. Sudan already ranked among the highest globally in maternal mortality, and now tens of thousands of women are expected to give birth without medical care. Over 3.7 million children suffer from malnutrition, many at risk of death
from hunger or disease. Survivors of sexual violence, mostly women and girls, some as young as five, have been left without treatment or justice.
Dr. Himedan stressed that these are not simply the byproducts of war, but deliberate violations of international humanitarian law. The Sudanese army has carried out at least 51 attacks on health facilities, including the bombing of Al-Rahma Hospital in West Kordofan in June 2025, which killed more than 40 civilians, among them children and
medical staff. Attacking hospitals, obstructing aid delivery, and targeting civilians are all war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.
Behind these numbers lie human stories. In its report “Voices from South Darfur,” Médecins Sans Frontières documented the case of a mother who buried three of her children because she could not access a simple medicine during pregnancy, a grief shared by thousands of women across Sudan.
In conclusion, Dr. Himedan urged the United Nations and the Human Rights Council to:
- Condemn the destruction of health facilities and attacks on medical staff as war crimes;
- Guarantee unimpeded humanitarian access, including medicines, food, and vaccines;
- Prioritize the protection of women and children in all humanitarian responses;
- Impose individual and international accountability measures on those responsible for attacks against health facilities and civilians;
- Refer Sudan’s situation to the International Criminal Court to end impunity.
She concluded by affirming: “Health is not a privilege, but a non- negotiable human right, even in times of war. For many in Sudan, it is already too late. But for millions more, urgent international intervention can mean the difference between life and death. The future of Sudan will be shaped by the lives we save today.”