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Sudan: ‘History repeating itself’ for Darfur’s children - UNICEF

Mass atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur 20 years ago reverberated as far as Hollywood, but today, a new generation of children faces attacks, hunger and displacement in an emergency largely ignored by the outside world, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.

Sheldon Yett, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative in Sudan, told reporters that with the devastating war in Sudan in its fourth year, “history is repeating itself in the darkest possible way”.

“In Darfur, children are being killed and maimed, uprooted from their homes, and pushed into extreme hunger, disease, and trauma,” he said.

Speaking from Port Sudan, Mr. Yett called the situation of children in the western Sudan region “catastrophic” and stressed that across the five Darfur states, more than five million children are facing “extreme deprivation”.

In just the first 90 days of this year, at least 245 children were reportedly killed or injured, he said, adding that the true toll is “likely far higher”.

The Sudan war erupted on 15 April 2023, when fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their former allies – the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Today, frontlines are “consistently moving” with active fighting also in the Kordofans and Blue Nile province. And just as in other modern conflicts, attack drones are being used widely with a rare intensity, the UNICEF representative stressed.

This has included drone strikes against humanitarian infrastructure and convoys, with multiple cases recorded over the past few months.

Just last Friday, a truck from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) carrying emergency shelter kits for displaced people in Tawila came under drone attack in North Darfur.

All the supplies were destroyed, leaving over 1,300 families living in “desperate conditions” without shelter, UNHCR said in a statement on Sunday.

“We've had the feeling that no place is safe,” UNICEF’s Mr. Yett said. “Markets are being hit, schools are being hit, health centres are being hit, trucks carrying our urgently needed humanitarian supplies are being hit. Despite the fact that they're well marked, despite that all parties to the conflict know exactly where our suppliers are going, we talked to all parties and they're still being hit,” he said.

The UNICEF official stressed that the impact of the conflict on children has been most severe in North Darfur’s capital El Fasher. The city’s residents endured an 18-month siege linked to UN-documented atrocities that culminated in an RSF takeover in late October 2025. Before the paramilitaries overran El Fasher, civilians had been deprived access to food, water, medical supplies and humanitarian assistance.

“Since April of 2024, more than 1,500 grave violations against children have been verified in El Fasher, including the killing and maiming of over 1,300 children, many by explosive weapons and drones, as well as sexual violence, abductions, and recruitment and use by armed groups,” he said.

Famine conditions were confirmed in El Fasher in November 2025. In parts of Darfur, acute malnutrition rates among children now exceed 50 per cent, Mr. Yett said.

Even though the siege of El Fasher has ended, the UNICEF representative said that its impact continues to shape the daily lives of children – “both those who fled and those who are forced to stay”.

He highlighted the fact that the crisis “does not stop at Sudan's borders,” as children are fleeing into neighbouring countries.

“They're arriving exhausted, traumatized, and malnourished…Most communities have shown generosity, but services are overwhelmed and severely underfunded,” he said.

UNICEF fears that an entire generation is at stake. And with its 2026 humanitarian appeal for Sudan severely underfunded, the country’s children “need the world to act now,” Mr. Yett insisted.

He deplored the lack of global attention to this crisis, compared with the high-profile expressions of outrage back in 2006.

“I was in Darfur 20 years ago, and we had every Hollywood celebrity competing to get on the plane, to get on the bus, to get in the car,” he recounted. “Now we have absolutely no attention on Darfur, no attention on Sudan, given the scale of the crisis. And the situation is far more complex than it was 20 years ago.”

-Ends-

Darfur update - UNICEF

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