Geneva — UNICEF says five million children across Sudan’s Darfur region are facing extreme deprivation as the country’s civil war enters its fourth year, and has issued an emergency Child Alert for the region for the first time in two decades. The alert, used only rarely, signals that conditions for children have reached a critical threshold.
UNICEF representative in Sudan Sheldon Yett, speaking by video link from Port Sudan, said children are bearing the heaviest burden of the fighting. He described homes burned and entire communities uprooted, with schools and health facilities damaged or destroyed. Children are being killed and maimed, driven into severe hunger, exposed to disease and suffering widespread trauma.
The current fighting, which began in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has made Darfur again a focal point of violence, including ethnically charged attacks. The region also still bears the legacy of the earlier 2003 conflict, when rebel uprisings and government-backed militia operations caused mass displacement and atrocities.
UNICEF warned the latest crisis has attracted far less international attention than the earlier Darfur emergency. The UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan this year is just 16 percent funded. Across the country, reported child casualties have risen sharply: at least 160 children were killed and 85 injured in the first three months of 2026, compared with the same period last year.
Al-Fashir, long one of the hardest-hit cities, has suffered particularly grave impacts. Since April 2024, UNICEF says at least 1,300 children have been killed or maimed in and around the city, with reports of sexual violence, abductions and the recruitment of children by armed groups. In February, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification found acute malnutrition had reached famine levels in two additional parts of North Darfur.
UNICEF called for urgent funding, protection measures and humanitarian access to prevent further deterioration and to safeguard the lives and wellbeing of children across Darfur.
