Sudan's Pregnant Women Bear the Heaviest Cost of Civil War

Two years into Sudan's civil war, maternal health infrastructure has effectively ceased to exist across large swathes of the country. The UN reports women delivering in the open, in displacement camps without trained midwives, and in facilities that have been looted or bombed. Sudan already had one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates before the war; the collapse of supply chains for oxytocin, blood, and surgical equipment has pushed outcomes to levels that clinicians describe as pre-modern.

The specific cruelty of this crisis is that maternal mortality is almost entirely preventable with a narrow set of interventions — skilled attendance, emergency obstetric care, blood supply — that cost relatively little but require a functioning logistics chain and physical safety. War breaks all three simultaneously. Aid agencies cannot operate in active conflict zones; the parties to the conflict have directly attacked health facilities; and international attention that could pressure for humanitarian corridors has been consumed by other crises.

The critical variable to track is whether the African Union or a third-party mediator can negotiate protected humanitarian corridors specifically for maternal and newborn care — a targeted ask that has succeeded in other conflicts and would not require a broader ceasefire to implement.