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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-
STORY Darfur update - UNICEF
TRT: 3:27’’
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: CREDIT UNICEF / UNHCR (details below)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 28 APRIL 2026 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND; SEPTEMBER/NOVEMBER 2025, TAWILA, SUDAN (UNICEF BROLL); 24 APRIL 2026, TAWILA, SUDAN (UNHCR BROLL)
1. Exterior wide shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
2. Medium-wide reverse shot: Speakers at the podium of the press conference; speaker on screens; journalists in the Press room.
3. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “In Darfur, children are being killed and maimed, uprooted from their homes, and pushed into extreme hunger, disease, and trauma.”
4. Medium reverse shot: Speakers at the podium of the press conference; speaker on screen.
5. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “What we're seeing is also an intensity in the use of drones, drone strikes against humanitarian infrastructure, humanitarian convoy. We've had multiple cases over the last several months. We've had the feeling that no place is safe.”
6. Wide shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screens.
7. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “Markets are being hit, schools are being hit, health centers are being hit, trucks carrying our urgently required, 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.”
8. Medium shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screens.
9. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “In just the first 90 days of this year, at least 245 children were reportedly killed or injured. These are just the cases we've been able to document, but the true toll is likely far higher.”
10. Medium shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
11. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “The conflict is intensifying. Of course, it isn't just confined to Darfur. The front lines are consistently moving here, constantly moving here. We have the Kordofans, we have Blue Nile as well, where we've seen active fighting.”
12. Medium-wide shot: Journalists in the Press room; speaker on screen.
13. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “This crisis does not stop at Sudan's borders. 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.”
14. Medium-wide reverse shot: Speakers at the podium of the press conference; speaker on screens; journalists in the Press room.
15. SOUNDBITE (English) – Sheldon Yett, Representative in Sudan, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “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. 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.”
16. Various shots of journalists in the Press room.
17. UNICEF BROLL - credit UNICEF:
-SEPTEMBER 2025, TAWILA, SUDAN - Wide shot: a mother feeds her child with a nutrition supplement.
-NOVEMBER 2025, TAWILA, SUDAN - Wide shot: children and adults walking about inside the camp.
-NOVEMBER 2025, TAWILA, SUDAN - Wide shot: children and women collect water.
18. UNHCR BROLL: 24 APRIL 2026, TAWILA, SUDAN – Aftermath of drone attack on humanitarian convoy in Tawila, Sudan – credit UNHCR.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
ends