BBC documents at least 43 attacks on healthcare in Sudan’s el-Fasher
UN monitoring also found repeated strikes on hospitals and makeshift clinics, severely limiting care for thousands of civilians trapped in the city.
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UN monitoring also found repeated strikes on hospitals and makeshift clinics, severely limiting care for thousands of civilians trapped in the city.
A BBC investigation published on 22 October documents at least 43 separate attacks on hospitals and healthcare sites in Sudan’s el-Fasher between May 2024 and October 2025, with some facilities hit repeatedly. It also includes a hospital director’s accounts of drones striking people transferring patients between treatment sites. The BBC reports evidence that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) systematically destroyed the Darfur city’s healthcare system during their siege and takeover. The RSF rejects the findings.
Sudan’s war between the RSF and the military began in April 2023. Some el-Fasher medical facilities closed within weeks, including the Teaching Hospital, whose services moved to South Hospital. Staff there continued working amid power cuts and dwindling supplies before the RSF began its siege a year later.
Surgeon Izzeldin Ahmed Dawaud Asow, identified by the BBC as South Hospital’s director general, said a drone followed people carrying injured patients to a temporary ward on 15 March 2025. It struck as they reached the building’s gate, killing nine people, he told the BBC.
Asow also said a drone hit a donkey cart taking patients to an alternative operating theatre on 17 August 2025, killing two patients, the driver and the donkey. He said staff were using the cart because all the ambulances had been destroyed.
According to the BBC, South Hospital was shelled several times in late May and early June 2024, followed by an RSF raid on 8 June 2024. After the hospital closed, its staff and remaining equipment moved to Saudi Maternity Hospital in the west of the city, where the army had its main bases. Attacks on that hospital intensified within days.
The joint statement estimates that 41% of Sudan’s population faces acute food insecurity, including five million at emergency levels, and calls for safe, unrestricted aid access.
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Relocation did not spare other services, the investigation reports. The Specialised Children’s Hospital moved to two replacement sites after closing early in the war; both were shelled and forced to close. The city’s main dialysis centre, which treated patients with kidney failure, was attacked and then struck again after moving.
By the RSF’s takeover in October 2025, Saudi Hospital was the only functioning health facility left, the BBC reports. Staff used sandbags, underground shelters made from steel containers and alternative treatment sites to keep receiving patients and performing surgery.
The BBC also compiled a toll on medical workers. Those figures cover April 2023 to October 2025—a longer period than its chronology of attacks.
| Reported harm | Medical workers |
|---|---|
| Injured | 120 |
| Killed | 55 |
| Forcibly disappeared or abducted | 10 |
Six doctors interviewed by the BBC described a pattern of systematic targeting. Surgeon Muhamed Suliman, who worked in el-Fasher during the siege, said the RSF intended to disable hospitals so residents could no longer remain in the city. During the attacks, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said it did not know whether hospitals were being intentionally targeted, but said the warring parties were not taking precautions to spare them.
Dr Alaa Eldin Nugud, health minister in the RSF-backed civilian government, dismissed the allegations as propaganda intended by Sudan’s military and its allies to damage the RSF’s reputation. He called the doctors’ accounts of attacks “a continuation of lies” and argued that many medics were aligned with the military and its local allies because of tribal and racial divisions.
Nugud alleged that South Hospital was a military base with missile launchers, presenting footage of weapons remains filmed more than a year after it closed. He also presented what he described as maps of landmines around the Teaching Hospital, which stood next to military headquarters.
The BBC found no independent evidence supporting Nugud’s allegations. Doctors said the Teaching Hospital was not part of the military base, and Darfur’s regional government rejected the allegations. The distinction matters under international humanitarian law—the rules governing armed conflict—because hospitals can lose protection if used to commit an act harmful to the enemy.
Nugud denied that doctors were forcibly abducted, saying they had chosen to stay and work. A doctor in a video he cited told the BBC he had been forced to remain.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the investigation was consistent with his office’s monitoring. The UN human rights office had documented repeated RSF strikes that destroyed or seriously damaged main hospitals and makeshift facilities, severely reducing healthcare access for thousands of trapped civilians, he said. Türk described attacks on civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, as serious violations of international humanitarian law that may amount to war crimes.
The RSF-backed government now runs healthcare in el-Fasher. It has released videos showing Saudi Hospital and the Teaching Hospital reopened, cleaned up and treating some patients.
Nugud also told the BBC that South Hospital was set to reopen.
The UK government has imposed travel bans and asset freezes on commanders from both sides of Sudan’s war whom it suspects of sexual violence during the siege of El Fasher.
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An official blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for strikes on five power stations, while residents described risks to refrigerated medicine, food stocks and efforts to resume farming.
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