The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday expressed concern over reports that more than 70 medical and nursing staff members, along with approximately 5,000 civilians, have been detained in Nyala, in southwestern Sudan.

“We are concerned about information reaching us from Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, that over 70 health professionals are being forcibly detained, as well as some 5,000 civilians,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.

“According to the Sudan Doctors Network, detainees are being held in suffocating and unsanitary conditions, and there are reports of disease outbreaks,” he added.

Nyala is currently controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces, along with factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North, which have allied with the RSF in recent months.

“The WHO is gathering more information on the detentions and the conditions in which people are being held. The situation is complicated by ongoing insecurity,” Dr. Tedros said.

“The reported detention of health workers and thousands of other civilians is deeply troubling. Health workers and civilians must be protected at all times, and we call for their safe and unconditional release,” he added.

The WHO monitors and verifies attacks on health services but does not attribute responsibility, stressing that doing so falls outside its mandate.

So far this year, the UN agency has recorded 65 attacks on health services in Sudan, resulting in 1,620 deaths and 276 injuries. Of these attacks, 54 involved casualties among health workers, 46 targeted health facilities, and 33 caused casualties among patients.