Maternal Deaths in Jebel Marra Expose a Quiet Collapse of Healthcare

Maternal deaths in Sudan’s Jebel Marra are rooted in the gradual breakdown of healthcare in an area controlled by neither Hemedti nor Burhan.

The collapse did not come through the bombing of hospitals. Instead, facilities quietly closed their doors as the resources and staff needed to keep them operating disappeared.

Medical workers left and did not return. Their departure hollowed out a system on which pregnant women depended, leaving fewer options for care.

Funding also dwindled, bringing salaries and medicine supplies to a halt. These pressures steadily eroded the services needed to support women through pregnancy and childbirth.

The accounts of mothers dying in Jebel Marra point to a health crisis driven by prolonged institutional decline: hospitals left standing, but no longer able to provide care.