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Sudan's children facing “unprecedented mortality”: UN humanitarians

A deadly combination of a suspected measles outbreak and high malnutrition have led to the deaths of 1,200 refugee children under five in Sudan’s White Nile State while many thousands more, including newborns, are at risk of death by the end of the year, UN humanitarians warned on Tuesday.

”More than 1,200 refugee children under five have died in nine camps in the period between 15 May and 14 September,” said Dr. Allen Maina, Chief of Public Health at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). “This is due to a combination of a suspected measles outbreak and high malnutrition. Over 3,000 suspected cases of measles have been reported in the same period.”

Since fighting erupted in April between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the country's healthcare sector has been "brought to its knees", subjected to direct attacks from the warring parties as well as shortages of staff and medicines, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) told reporters in Geneva.

Meanwhile, the UN’s 2023 Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan launched in May remains only 30 per cent funded.

According to James Elder, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson, “every month, 55,000 children require treatment for the most lethal form of malnutrition and yet in Khartoum, one in 50 nutrition centers is functional. In West Darfur, it's one in ten.”

Dr Ilham Nour, Sudan Health Operations Team Lead at WHO said that “3.4 million children under five are acutely malnourished, with close to 700,000 who are severely malnourished and among these 100,000 are acutely malnourished with medical complications.”

Since the start of the war, WHO has verified 56 attacks on health care, resulting in 11 deaths and 38 injuries.

“Against the background context of attacks on healthcare, scarcity of medical supplies and equipment, health workers and cash to cover operational cost,” said WHO’s Dr Nour. “About 70 to 80 per cent of hospitals in conflict affected states are nonfunctional, and the operational hospitals and clinics in non-conflict affected states are overwhelmed by the influx of internally displaced persons. Even before the conflict erupted in April, the baseline was already grim.”

With the lack of access to treatment, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that “many thousands of newborns” may die in Sudan by the end of the year.

“330,000 children will be born in Sudan between October and December. They and their mothers, as you heard, do need skilled delivery care rather in a country where millions are trapped, millions are lacking access to those basic healthcare services, and there are of course grave shortages of medical supply. Such care is becoming less and less likely by the day,” said UNICEF's James Elder.

Children are also directly impacted by the ongoing fighting.

“The most recent official casualty figures for children killed in this conflict by fighting are 435”, said Mr. Elder. “Given the utter devastation that you've heard to those lifesaving services, UNICEF fears Sudan's youngest citizens are entering a period of unprecedented mortality.”

In neighbouring South Sudan, which has received over 276,000 people who fled Sudan due to the conflict, most of them South Sudanese returnees, malnutrition is "deepening at a rapid scale", UNHCR's Dr. Maina said.

Across South Sudan over 5,000 suspected cases of measles have been reported, with over 140 deaths so far. Children younger than five are worst impacted, accounting for nearly 70 per cent of all cases and 76 per cent of all the deaths, according to the UNHCR public health chief.

Dr. Maina added that “half of the affected children were unvaccinated against measles, highlighting gaps in immunization, especially amongst returnees and refugees. On average, 103 children per month were admitted in health facilities for moderate or severe malnutrition between May and July.”

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Health emergency in Sudan: UNHCR - UNICEF - WHO

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