UN official warns of dire maternal health situation in Darfur

Pregnant women in Darfur, Sudan, face life-threatening conditions as they struggle to reach medical care for childbirth, a United Nations official has reported. Fabrizia Falcione, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) representative in Sudan, described harrowing journeys where women travel for hours, often on rudimentary stretchers, through difficult terrain to access the sole hospital capable of performing C-sections in Golo, Central Darfur.

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Most women arrive from the villages walking for hours or being transported on rudimentary wooden stretchers through the mountains, when they are already in labor or suffering from hemorrhage.

Falcione recounted her own nine-hour journey to Golo from the Chad border, highlighting the poor road conditions. She stated that many women arrive too late for themselves and their babies. Even after delivery, some women return to their villages on foot days later, as the hospital sometimes runs out of essential supplies like anesthesia. The situation is exacerbated by the ongoing civil war, which has displaced over 700,000 people into camps like Tawila, where emergency obstetric care facilities have been established but still require long and perilous travel for many.

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Many arrive when it is already too late for them and also for their babies.

"We cannot leave pregnant women with no other option than to cross a vast and difficult territory to reach a hospital where they can give birth safely," Falcione urged. She recommended expanding mobile health services and providing better support and compensation for community midwives, who often receive minimal payment, sometimes as little as soap or sugar, for assisting in births.

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We cannot leave pregnant women with no other option than to cross a vast and difficult territory to reach a hospital where they can give birth safely.

The UNFPA and other humanitarian agencies in Darfur are facing funding challenges, further complicating efforts to provide much-needed reproductive health supplies and services. The stark reality for expectant mothers in Darfur underscores the critical need for increased humanitarian aid and improved access to healthcare in the region.

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The midwives I spoke with in Darfur told me that to help a woman give birth they receive as payment what the women can offer them, sometimes a simple bar of soap or a little sugar.