COMMON ANALYSIS
Last update: June 2025
This profile refers to Sudanese staff of national or international NGOs, UN agencies and local humanitarian actors (such as community kitchens), along with healthcare workers.
For the situations of Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) volunteers, please refer to 3.3. Members of the Resistance committees (RCs) and Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs).
The analysis below is based on the following EUAA COI reports and query: Country Focus 2024, 2.2; Country Focus 2025, 2.4., 2.6. (b); Security 2025, 1.3.1. (c).; COI Update, 2.2., 3., 4.. Country Guidance should not be referred to as a source of COI.
The outbreak of the conflict has led to a catastrophic deterioration of the humanitarian situation and the working environment for humanitarian and healthcare workers.
Step 1: Do the reported acts amount to persecution?
Some acts to which persons falling under this profile could be exposed are of such a severe nature that they would amount to persecution. Reportedly, numerous cases of killing, beating, detention, sexual assault, kidnapping as well as looting have been committed by both warring parties. Violent targeted attacks on medical and humanitarian convoys and ambulances are also reported. Since the beginning of the ongoing conflict, humanitarian workers face extremely dangerous conditions, among the worst in the world according to the IOM.
Female healthcare workers have been specifically targeted with sexual violence as means of punishment for their activities. See 3.9.1. Violence against women and girls.
The severity and/or repetitiveness of other acts to which individuals under this profile could be subjected and whether they occur as an accumulation of various measures, should also be considered. For example, aid workers face insults, pressure, intimidation, extorsion and administrative barriers.
Step 2: What is the level of risk of persecution?
A well-founded fear of persecution would in general be substantiated for humanitarian and healthcare workers as they face targeting by both the SAF and the RSF, and their allies.
Step 3: Is there a ground for persecution?
Persecution of individuals falling under this profile is highly likely to be for reasons of (imputed) political opinion, as aid workers have been accused of fuelling the conflict and spying for the enemy while healthcare workers have been accused of collaborating with and providing treatment to members of the opposing camp or victims of conflict-related sexual violence.