Amidst the shelling and gunfire, Ezra held her newborn son in her arms. When war broke out in Sudan in April 2023, she tried to get to the hospital to treat her baby, who was suffering from an infection and difficulty breathing. But the fighting blocked the way, so the young mother could not get to the hospital, and her son died in her arms.
When she became pregnant again in August last year, she feared losing another child. “There is only one functioning maternity hospital in Khartoum,” Esra said. “It is very dangerous to walk around the city. One of our neighbors died on the way to the hospital.”
Throughout the war, Ezra and her family were forced to move repeatedly, as areas that were safe one day became deadly the next. They eventually found refuge in a crowded shelter with other migrants from Khartoum.
‘It was like moving from one grave to another.’
Khartoum, once the largest city in Sudan, now has vast areas resembling ghost towns. Conditions in shelters for those forced from their homes are dire. Overcrowding is rampant and basic hygiene essentials are often lacking. Food is also becoming increasingly scarce, with many struggling with extreme hunger, and Sudan is facing the worst level of acute food insecurity ever recorded in the country.
As the crisis deepens and diseases such as polio and cholera spread, access to healthcare has become one of the most critical challenges for Khartoum’s people. Most health facilities have been forced to cease service due to destruction and severe shortages of supplies.
“I was five months pregnant when I got to the shelter,” Ezra said. “For me, it was like going from one grave to another. We were constantly expecting something bad to happen. There was no hope in our hearts.”
© UNFPA Sudan/Sufian Abdul-Mouty
Midwives and other health workers at the Khartoum Maternity Hospital in Sudan.
Circuit responder
In these dire circumstances, a mobile health team supported by UNFPA arrived at the shelter to provide reproductive health and protection services to the women and girls living there. “The mobile health team plays a vital role in preventing maternal deaths by providing comprehensive health services in war-affected areas of Sudan,” explained team coordinator Mohamed Hassan Nahat.
Ezra received prenatal care and micronutrients from the team, which visited regularly to care for her and other women and girls in the shelter. “They not only provided medical care, but they also gave me a sense of security and hope that I hadn’t felt in months,” she said.
Four months later, Ezra gave birth to a healthy baby boy with the help of a mobile team. “I gave birth in a shelter. They took care of me and the baby, and I named him Mohammed after the doctor who helped me.”
UNFPA has deployed 56 mobile health teams across 11 states in Sudan to provide sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based violence protection and response. Since the start of the war, the teams, including doctors, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, psychologists and midwives, have conducted more than 150,000 consultations.
© UNFPA Sudan/Sufian Abdul-Mouty
Midwives and other health workers at the Khartoum Maternity Hospital in Sudan.
While they are saving lives and providing the only medical care many receive, humanitarians like social worker Nisreen Kamal Abdullah feel there is more to be done for these communities.
“The clinic’s available time was not enough to treat everyone. We need to visit all communities more frequently to reach more people and provide consistent treatment,” she told UNFPA. “Most of the women we met with psychological problems stopped receiving treatment because they could not afford the medication.”
Reaching remote communities
The mobility of teams is crucial to increasing access to essential services in remote areas and preventing maternal deaths due to unsafe births and high-risk pregnancies. Too often, lack of transportation means that many people cannot get to health centers on time or at all.
On average, a team travels to three different locations a week, spending one to two days at each location, depending on the size and needs of the community.
“I had not left Khartoum during the war and continued to work in the hospital, but this experience was different,” Dr. Nahat explained.
“I’ve reached remote areas and connected with people I couldn’t reach before. It’s been a huge boost to them to know that there’s an organization that cares about them and that they’re not left behind.”
