More than three years into Sudan's war, the humanitarian response has rightly focused on the basics of survival: food, shelter, water, and emergency medical care. But another crisis is unfolding quietly alongside it, one that gets far less attention: the slow collapse of the essential health services people rely on every day.

Across the country, millions of people are losing access to the essential healthcare services that sustain health and everyday life. Children born with entirely treatable conditions are waiting months, sometimes years, for surgery; cancer patients see their treatment interrupted mid-course; people with kidney disease can't reliably get dialysis; pregnant women travel long distances for a functioning maternity ward, and the hospitals still operational are stretched thin, overwhelmed by demand, short on medicine and staffed by health workers working under extreme pressure.