Pregnancy- and childbirth-related maternal deaths are rising in Jebel Marra, western Sudan, where the closure of most health facilities, shortages of medicines and medical staff, and the absence of ambulances have denied pregnant women antenatal care and safe childbirth. Families are being forced to carry them on their shoulders or on wooden stretchers along rough mountain paths to reach distant hospitals.
In the village of Dibba Naira, on the foothills of Jebel Marra, Amna Omar lost her daughter and grandchild before they reached hospital. She says her daughter was eight months pregnant when she went into labour at night, at a time when there was no doctor, midwife or means of transport in the village.
Amna says her daughter's husband and relatives carried her on a wooden stretcher and walked with her along mountain tracks towards Qolo hospital, but she and her baby died on the way before reaching the hospital. Amna now lives in her tent with three children, after her daughter left it for treatment and never returned.
Jebel Marra outside the control of the army and Rapid Support Forces
Jebel Marra stretches across Central and South Darfur states and is controlled by the Sudan Liberation Army Movement led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nour, which has established a civil authority to administer the areas under its control, along with Tawila locality in North Darfur state. These areas have remained outside the control of the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces since the war began on 15 April 2023, becoming a refuge during years of fighting for thousands of civilians fleeing the clashes.
However, the influx of displaced people has coincided with a sharp decline in the local health system's ability to provide services. Residents and humanitarian organisations link the maternal deaths to the gradual collapse of the health system.
Health facilities close amid shortages of medical staff and medicines
According to their accounts, the hospitals did not stop operating because they had been bombed. Instead, they gradually closed after medical staff left, funding became scarce, salaries, maintenance work and supply chains halted, medicines ran out in warehouses and no new shipments arrived. Activist Mohamed Saleh Abkar, who is from the area, says most health facilities have stopped operating.
He explained that Durbat rural hospital, located high on the mountain slope, closed its doors after providing basic healthcare services for women, denying pregnant women antenatal care and safe childbirth services and worsening their suffering. Abkar added that the area had recorded more than six childbirth-related deaths in recent months.
He attributed these cases to the distance from health centres, the difficulty of reaching them via mountain roads, and the absence of specialist services needed for maternal care and the management of complicated births. Suleiman Adam al-Nour, media officer for the Qolo Area Emergency Rooms, warns that rough roads and the lack of transport increase the risks of home births and raise the likelihood of miscarriage, anaemia and premature birth.
He appealed to the relevant authorities to provide transport and ambulances to help take patients and pregnant women to health facilities and save their lives. According to al-Nour, the few hospitals that have continued to operate are no longer able to save lives because of staff shortages and depleted medicine supplies.
Qolo and Nertiti hospitals are the last surgical facilities
Qolo and Nertiti hospitals are the only facilities in the area capable of performing caesarean sections, and there is now no alternative to them after the larger hospitals stopped operating. The crisis in Jebel Marra reflects a wider deterioration in Sudan's health sector.
A World Health Organisation report issued on 13 July 2026 said the country's maternal mortality rate had reached 256 deaths per 100,000 live births, about four times higher than the global Sustainable Development Goal for 2030, which calls for reducing the rate to fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Hunger and malnutrition worsen in an area besieged by limited services?
The healthcare crisis in Jebel Marra coincides with worsening hunger, malnutrition and disease. On 8 September 2026, the civil authority in areas controlled by the Sudan Liberation Army Movement led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed Nour announced that Jebel Marra, Tawila, Ain Siro and displacement camps had entered a phase it described as a “famine catastrophe”.
The authority warned of rising deaths and cases of malnutrition among children, women and older people, estimating that between 10 and 20 people were dying each day from direct hunger and related diseases. It attributed the deteriorating conditions to obstruction of aid convoys and humanitarian assistance, the failure of the agricultural season because of low rainfall, and the spread of epidemics and contamination of drinking water.
Fatima Ibrahim Haroun, a housewife who lives with her family in Jebel Marra, says she has seen dozens of women carried on people's shoulders during labour, crying out in pain. She has also seen babies born by the roadside on mountain paths before their mothers reached health facilities.
Haroun added that Durbat village alone had lost about eight mothers over two months, suggesting the real number was much higher because many deaths were never recorded. Her testimony is consistent with other accounts of residents having to travel long distances with pregnant women amid the absence of transport and the difficult terrain.
The Darfur Network for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation that monitors and documents human rights violations in the region, says residents carry pregnant women on their shoulders for long distances to reach the nearest health facility. Hospitals and clinics are often located kilometres from villages, while transport remains limited and the roads extremely rough.
The network says women experiencing prolonged or complicated labour often do not receive life-saving care in time. It also cited local communities' accounts of dozens of mothers dying during journeys from their villages to the nearest health facility.
The civil authority in areas controlled by the Sudan Liberation Army Movement and Sudan's Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for comment on the maternal mortality crisis in Jebel Marra.
In Dibba Naira, pregnant women in their final months are still waiting to give birth amid the same possibilities faced by Amna Omar's daughter: giving birth inside a tent, on a mountain road, or while attempting to reach a distant hospital.
