The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Tuesday that five million children in Sudan’s Darfur region are facing severe deprivation, issuing an urgent warning about the situation as the country’s civil war enters its fourth year.
UNICEF issued the warning under the designation “Child Alert,” a rarely used measure indicating that the situation has reached a critical level. This is the first time the organization has issued such a warning regarding Darfur in 20 years, when the region was ravaged by war during the rule of ousted President Omar al-Bashir.
“Children across the region have reached breaking point, and childhood has once again become synonymous with fear and loss,” Sheldon Yate, UNICEF’s representative in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan. “Homes have been burned, and schools and health facilities have been damaged or completely destroyed.”
He added: “Children bear the heaviest burden of the war in Darfur, as they are killed, injured, and disabled; uprooted from their homes; and driven into the clutches of acute hunger, disease, and psychological trauma.”
The Darfur region, in western Sudan, has been a major hotspot for violence both before and after the outbreak of this war, when fighting began between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.
The region was the scene of widespread crimes and mass displacement during the war waged by the former regime against specific ethnic groups in 2003—crimes that the International Criminal Court classified as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and for which arrest warrants were issued against leaders of the former regime, foremost among them President Omar al-Bashir and his Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Hussein, as well as Ahmed Haroun, the current leader of the National Congress Party (NCP).
Despite the worsening of the current crisis, UNICEF said the situation has received little international attention compared to the 2003 conflict, noting that its humanitarian appeal for Sudan this year has been funded by only 16 percent.
Across Sudan, UNICEF reported that at least 160 children were killed and 85 others injured during the first three months of this year, a significant increase compared to the same period last year.
The organization noted that acute malnutrition among children reached famine levels in two additional areas of North Darfur last February, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands, the displacement of nearly 4.5 million people, and the displacement of nearly 13 million, causing a humanitarian disaster described by the United Nations as the worst in the world.
