---
title: "Sudan civil war damages hospitals, forcing cancer patients into dangerous journeys"
id: "stat-news-2-in-sudan-attacks-on-hospitals-force-patients-to-make-dangerous-journeys"
canonical_url: "https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/stat-news-2-in-sudan-attacks-on-hospitals-force-patients-to-make-dangerous-journeys"
content_type: "clinical_feed_article"
specialty: "Oncology"
source_name: "STAT News"
source_url: "https://www.statnews.com/2026/09/18/sudan-civil-war-cancer-treatment-wartime-tom-catena-mother-mercy-hospital/?utm_campaign=rss"
published_at: "2026-09-18T08:30:00.000Z"
evidence_level: "Verified Feed"
license: "CC-BY-NC-4.0 / Informational Use"
---
# Sudan civil war damages hospitals, forcing cancer patients into dangerous journeys
## Provenance & Clinical Metadata
- **Canonical URL:** https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/stat-news-2-in-sudan-attacks-on-hospitals-force-patients-to-make-dangerous-journeys
- **Specialty:** [Oncology](https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/oncology.md)
- **Primary Source:** STAT News
- **Source URL:** [Original Journal Publication](https://www.statnews.com/2026/09/18/sudan-civil-war-cancer-treatment-wartime-tom-catena-mother-mercy-hospital/?utm_campaign=rss)
- **Published At:** 2026-09-18T08:30:00.000Z
- **Evidence Rating:** Verified Feed
## Executive GIST (TL;DR)
- The Nuba Mountains’ **Mother of Mercy Hospital**, run by medical missionary **Tom Catena**, receives cancer patients who travel hundreds of miles because regional hospitals have been destroyed in Sudan’s 2023 civil war. - Conflict has produced large-scale displacement — about **13 million people** — and both sides have been accused of attacking health facilities; the U.N. counts **205 attacks on health care facilities** since the war began. - The World Health Organization reports roughly **37% of Sudan’s health centers** have been destroyed by fighting, and international aid cuts have worsened the collapse of health services. - Sudan was previously a regional leader in cancer care, but a 2025 paper in Global Oncology and current reporting note severe disruptions to chemotherapy supplies, diagnostic capacity, and normal supply chains. - At Mother of Mercy there is no oncologist on staff; staff sometimes administered **about 15 doses of chemotherapy in a single day** to patients with no other options. - The hospital must send biopsy tissue samples to the United States for review; turnaround can take **up to six months**, forcing clinicians to rely on clinical exams and treat advanced presentations. - The nearest hospital capable of cancer care is estimated to be **Port Sudan, some 700 miles away**, across active frontlines. - Patients recount perilous travel: multiple long trips, drone strikes, checkpoints, food scarcity, and extreme expense (e.g., selling livestock to pay for diagnosis). - Clinical vignettes include a woman with cervical cancer who traveled repeatedly for chemotherapy, a 10-year-old with osteosarcoma who required hip amputation and chemotherapy, and others who died after delayed or inadequate care. - Warring dynamics have changed local control: the Rapid Support Forces’ alliance with the rebel group controlling the Nuba Mountains has turned the region into a staging ground for militants, further complicating access to care. - Reporting for the story was supported by The Pulitzer Center.
## Clinical Analysis & Structured Key Points
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Test your knowledge with our new weekday mini crossword [ Start solving ](https://www.statnews.com/stat-mini-crossword/) [Health](https://www.statnews.com/category/health/) # In Sudan, attacks on hospitals force patients to make dangerous journeys ## Cancer patients, ‘indirect casualties of war,’ find care at Mother of Mercy ![](https://www.statnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/GP-cancerpnuba-13-1024x1536.jpg) Fatouma Mahdi Ahmed Saeed traveled hundreds of miles to get treatment for cervical cancer at the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Sudan.Guy Peterson for STAT * [Manage alerts for this article](https://www.statnews.com/my-account/edit/#emails) * [Save this story for later](https://www.statnews.com/my-account/saved/) * [Share this article](https://www.statnews.com/2026/09/18/sudan-civil-war-cancer-treatment-wartime-tom-catena-mother-mercy-hospital/?utm_campaign=rss) * * * Story by Sophie Neiman for STAT Photography by Guy Peterson for STAT Sept. 18, 2026 HHEIBAN DISTRICT, Sudan — For more than a decade, medical missionary Tom Catena has run the largest hospital in the Nuba Mountains, a rugged territory the size of Austria, most recently in the midst of a brutal civil war. There is no oncologist on staff at Mother of Mercy, but as the war destroys much of the country’s health care system, patients like Fatouma Mahdi Ahmed Saeed, who has cervical cancer, keep turning up at his door. Advertisement Diagnosed last year by a private doctor in her home city of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, Saeed had no choice but to make a dangerous trip of hundreds of miles to Catena’s hospital in central Sudan. [Cancer](https://www.statnews.com/topic/cancer/), [global health](https://www.statnews.com/topic/global-health/) [Submit a correction request](https://www.statnews.com/contact/?how_can_we_help_=Editorial%20Correction%20Request)[Reprints](https://www.parsintl.com/publications/stat/) 1. Sophie Neiman Sophie Neiman is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya, covering politics and human rights. 2. 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