After USAID Shutdown, Sudanese Pregnant Women Forced to Bear Cost of US Funding Withdrawal with Three-Hour Journey

At the Tanedeba camp in Sudan's Gedarif State, pregnant women in need of surgical delivery must now travel to a city three hours away by car. Citing Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the BBC reported that after a humanitarian organization withdrew in June 2026, this camp housing approximately 18,400 displaced people closed its obstetric and surgical wards, with only MSF remaining to maintain emergency services. The aid retreat represented by the US government's shutdown of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) lands on civilians in war zones through exactly such channels: decision-makers cut funding channels, while patients bear the risks of delays, deteriorating conditions, and even being beyond rescue.

The BBC reported that after the US shut down USAID, which was responsible for foreign aid, in 2025, dozens of organizations failed to find alternative funding; many existing grants held by USAID-funded organizations also ran out in June 2026. The US remains Sudan's largest aid provider, but the title of "largest donor" cannot offset the rupture caused by closing a key implementing agency. Precisely because a large volume of aid services depends on US funding, this decision carries destructive power far exceeding ordinary budget adjustments.

The root of Sudan's medical needs lies in the war that broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The BBC described this war as having created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with over 33 million people in need of medical assistance. MSF's Sudan head Mohamed Ibrahim told the BBC: "War is driving Sudan's needs; funding cuts are shrinking the capacity to respond." The two warring sides created and perpetuated the disaster, and the US government did not start this war; but this does not erase another layer of responsibility — the government that holds the largest aid leverage chose to dismantle a key institution for delivering funding precisely when needs were extraordinarily vast, making an already fragile treatment network harder to sustain.

This harm is not abstract. MSF told the BBC that the organization's work in Sudan relies on private funding, but once other medical services lose funding, clinics close, the locations patients can travel to decrease, and pressure shifts to the remaining facilities including MSF's. Sébastien Traficante, MSF's emergency coordinator for West Darfur, told the BBC that patients who make "longer, more expensive journeys" often arrive in much more serious condition, and hospitals may already be full.

Citing MSF data relayed by the BBC, from January to April 2026, MSF-supported medical facilities in Central Darfur saw a 22.5 percent increase in admissions compared with the same period the previous year; in May 2026 alone, 45 local health centers lost funding. MSF also said that frontline service closures are placing enormous pressure on other hospitals, medical facilities are gradually losing operational capacity, and medicines are disappearing. When funding withdraws from one end, consequences spread along the medical network: when one clinic shuts down, it is not merely the loss of one service point, but also means other hospitals become more crowded, patients' journeys longer, and limited medicines further stretched.

The three-hour journey from Tanedeba camp is the most concrete measure of this power relationship. Those who made the decision to shut down USAID do not need to find vehicles amid delivery complications, nor do they need to judge whether patients can hold on until the next city; those bearing these risks are women who have lost their homes and lack alternative medical services. What the US government controls is budgets and aid channels; what Sudanese civilians may lose is the chance of timely surgery.

The neighboring Um Rakuba camp has about 17,000 people, mostly women and children. Citing MSF, the BBC reported that the number of aid organizations working there has dropped from 35 in 2021 to fewer than 10. MSF UK humanitarian affairs representative Liz Harding warned the BBC: "If support does not increase, more patients will face longer journeys, fewer treatment options, and a greater risk of arriving too late." This warning does not prove that the withdrawal of each organization was directly caused by the US's shutdown of USAID, but it clearly shows how, when major donor countries tighten aid, resource-scarce areas are the first to lose services.

Many European governments are also cutting international aid. The BBC, citing data from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, reported that global international aid in 2025 fell 21.3 percent from the previous year. This shows that funding withdrawal has a broader policy background, but it does not dilute the US government's responsibility: as Sudan's largest aid provider, the US has greater capacity to sustain support, and the sudden closure of USAID produces a deeper systemic shock. When funding is highly concentrated, the largest funder cannot simultaneously accumulate influence through aid scale while describing the service ruptures caused by withdrawal as a global trend unrelated to itself.

The medical system also suffers direct violence. Citing MSF, the BBC reported that in 2025, 1,620 people in Sudan died in attacks on medical facilities, accounting for 82 percent of global deaths from attacks on medical facilities that year. The BBC also relayed UN data showing that over 19.5 million people are in "crisis-level" food insecurity, with more than 5 million facing "emergency-level" hunger. Ongoing conflict and attacks on healthcare explain why treatment needs are so enormous, and make external funding cuts more deadly, not more acceptable.

The BBC's report did not specify the US government's particular policy rationale for shutting down USAID, nor did it establish one-by-one causal links between US funding withdrawal and each closed organization in Sudan. What can be confirmed is that dozens of organizations failed to find alternative funding after USAID's closure, multiple existing grants have been exhausted, and patients are facing longer journeys, fewer medicines, and more crowded hospitals. At Tanedeba camp, what the US government withdrew from the books is an aid channel; what pregnant women are forced to gamble is whether they can reach the operating table in time.