Disability in Sudan

Disability in Sudan

by Sera

Guide:

The Topic	Article Number in the list
General info	1,
Social views - Memorial	2, 4,
War and Disability	5, 6
Resistance/advocacy	2, 3,

1. As for the most common forms of disability in Sudan, they are blindness (31%) and intellectual disability (24%). About 6% of people with disabilities are children under five years of age, and 28% of people with disabilities are aged 60 years and above. Among the challenges faced by people with disabilities are access to health, support, rehabilitation, education, and employment. The Sudan population census (2008) indicated that 38% of people with disabilities aged six years and older are enrolled in schools, while 15% had previously attended school at some point, and 41% had never attended school. As for those of working age, only 50% of them work.

World Health Organization. (2012). The launch of the World Report on Disability in Sudan. https://www.emro.who.int/ar/sdn/sudan-events/disability-arabicreport-launch.html

2. An interview with Zainab Adam Saleh Shein, A disabled singer/advocate who is visibly disabled (a mobility disability), discusses her experience as a visibly disabled woman, how she faced bullying, from her teachers at school, to recently from strangers on public transportation, in addition to constant stares. And she is one of the few disabled female singers. And they briefly compared the rights disabled people have in Sudan vs Uganda, as the singer visited it. And she mentioned meeting disabled Ugandans, and how they talked about having free education and a healthcare system. In Sudan, she covered that there was a Union for disabled people to advocate for their rights, and that after they got their leadership in 2019,  when they gave disabled people their union membership card, they also gave them papers containing the union constitution and Bylaws / Statutes to help them understand their rights and advocate for themselves. And how they successfully made local laws in 2005 in the District of Niala for their rights, where Niala had a population of 4000 disabled people at that time. They were planning to expand to the whole state of Darfur. And they were active until the current war started in 2023, which stopped everything. And these numbers have increased significantly due to the number of people who became disabled due to war injuries. For instance, they mentioned a refugee camp of Tawila having 8000 disabled people alone. Furthermore, they discussed how the numbers will be a lot more, due to the lack of actual calculation.

   
   

   As many people left the country, many died due to their disability hindering them from being aware of the dangerous circumstances of their area, and most of the people who successfully left these places, in the disabled population, are men. Due to a lack of money, mobility aids such as prosthetic limbs. And how their disability puts them in dangerous situations, as they are more vulnerable. Discussing a real-life example of a girl who told her that her blind sister died due to not knowing that she was running toward the crossfire, while thinking she was fleeing from it. Additionally, she covered how organisations that work on humanitarian work are dismissing them under the umbrella of women, with all the other categories of women, like refugees, the elderly, etc in their estimate and calculation, which makes them fail in giving disabled women their needs appropriately. She talked about how she feels a responsibility to represent disabled girls/women, because she knows that there are a lot of girls like her. And how the disabled community is dismissed and underrepresented in media and in society. And that is what gives her a push to continue her advocacy. And finally, she ended with the following message: We are not weak, but we were not given the opportunity, and the true means for us to reach our dreams/things. And we are capable of doing a lot of things with the little tools available to us. And evidence of this is that during this war, the number of young people, girls, and women who did many amazing things, which makes the person proud. And that indicates that nothing can break us”.

Darfur24. (2024, May 22). Missing rights and painful looks: The reality of people with disabilities in Sudan without statistics [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/darfur24/videos/1426658596127788/

3. An article talking about the educational barriers disabled people face, in this article interviewing 3 deaf students. Where they participated in a competition titled “A generation without limits”. Mohammed says, "We participated in the competition so that we may deliver our voices and to prove to everyone that our disability will not prevent us from participating in our society. Our project aims to establish cultural centers for learning sign language in the social, cultural, medical, and educational fields to help in spreading sign language for the deaf and non-deaf, to ensure that the deaf are not marginalized and that they obtain all their rights to participation, education, and finding job opportunities." Enas says, "Among the difficulties that faced us during our work in implementing this project is that the information was not sufficient. We need to support the deaf and provide educational curricula suitable for them, because most of them leave school due to the unsuitability of the curricula and sometimes because of the economic situation." Ahmed says, "We feel sad when we see that the deaf community still suffers from the lack of availability of basic facilities and rights, and we feel very happy when any individual with special needs is able to achieve successes." "Our vision for the future is to establish sign language teaching centers in all parts of Sudan. Our message to the government: qualify the deaf and ensure they obtain their rights and the availability of information. Our message to UNICEF: support deaf projects and allocate programs for them. Our message to the community: learn sign language so that we can communicate with you and emerge from isolation. Our message to our brothers and sisters with special needs: never give up, move forward in achieving your ambitions, and show your capabilities."  Enas, Mohammed, and Ahmed.

   
   

UNICEF Sudan. (2020, July 15). Dreaming of a Sudan where people with special needs can fulfill their dreams. https://www.unicef.org/sudan/stories/dreaming-sudan-where-people-special-needs-can-fulfill-their-dreams

4. "Discrimination and the lack of awareness toward children with disabilities in countries such as Sudan is a bitter reality. What happens, according to some of the worst-case scenarios, is that children with special needs are abandoned or locked inside homes without any contact with the outside world.

   
   

Awatif says (the mother of the partially deaf girl in the article): 'I struggled to register her in a regular school. Whenever I told the teachers about her hearing impairment, they would reject the request. Some believed that her hearing impairment affects her cognitive ability. One school principal even rejected her, saying that her presence in the school would affect the other students."

When Heba was asked about her opinion on her condition today, she shared with us her opinion, which is summarized in her life motto, saying: "I am currently focusing only on what pushes me forward. I used to fear people because I do not hear well, so I thought they were mocking me. As for now, I have accepted myself as I am. The disability that I have brings with it treasures that would not have come if the situation were different."

UNICEF Sudan. (2020, July 23). When opportunities are available, girls with special needs can achieve what they want to become. https://www.unicef.org/sudan/stories/when-opportunities-are-available-girls-special-needs-can-achieve-what-they-want-become

5. The summary, Fatima Qasim, the representative of the "Safe Corridors" initiative, announced that "the conditions of persons with disabilities have become more complex during the war in Sudan, as they suffer from unsafe displacement, homelessness, and killing, in addition to the worsening of their health condition due to the absence of services, as they have not been included in humanitarian response plans, including medicine, rehabilitation, and education, alongside neglect and mistreatment, which makes them among the most vulnerable and affected groups." The article discusses how the war made a lot of people disabled due to injuries, and made the life of already disabled people, before the war, harder as "The war destroyed more than 120 rehabilitation centers in the states of Khartoum (the capital) and Al-Jazirah”. According to statistics, the number of persons with disabilities in Sudan is estimated at 1.4 million people." And then the article interviews 2 disabled people and a caretaker (mother), all disabled due to injuries, discussing the lack of medical care, medicine, rehabilitation services, and mobility aids. And that disabled people are dismissed my huminitarian aids, and are at the bottom of their priorities.  Amin Abdel Qader, a volunteer at Al-Nao Hospital in Omdurman, revealed that "the hospital has been receiving about 6 amputation cases per day since the beginning of the conflict amidst aerial bombardment that does not differentiate between children, women, and the elderly, as the catastrophe has shown terrifying figures that doubled the numbers of people with permanent disabilities."

   
   

Muhair, S. (2024, June 3). Persons with disabilities in Sudan: A forgotten tragedy amidst the fires of war. Independent Arabia. https://www.independentarabia.com/node/638052/سياسة/متابعات/ذوو-الإعاقة-في-السودان-مأساة-منسية-وسط-نيران-الحرب

6. This article discusses many inhuman and just outrageously cruel, monstrous things the RSF did to disabled people. From mockery, stealing, to murder. For example, "A 29-year-old nurse from El Fasher recounted that an RSF fighter called another fighter, saying: 'Come and look at this madman,' referring to a young man with Down syndrome. The fighters ordered his sister, who was carrying him on her back, to put him down and then executed him. After killing her brother, they tied her hands, covered her face, and took her with them. Ongoing research by Human Rights Watch has revealed that many women and girls were abducted to be raped or held for ransom. The nurse also said that RSF fighters shot and killed a young woman with a physical disability, as well as her mother, who was carrying her. She also described fighters ordering a woman carrying a blind boy on her back to put him down. The nurse said: She said, "He cannot see." They shot him in the head immediately.'" 

   
   

Human Rights Watch. (2026, February 24). Sudan: People with disabilities targeted in North Darfur. https://www.hrw.org/ar/news/2026/02/24/sudan-people-with-disabilities-targeted-in-north-darfur