NEW YORK – As the conflict in Sudan continues, children are bearing the biggest brunt. Millions have fled their homes and are displaced in the country and across the borders.
Currently, 50 per cent of the total population – more than 24.7 million people, almost 14 million of whom are children, are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to a statement by UNICEF.
Sudan is now the largest child displacement crisis in the world, with a recorded 3.5 million children fleeing widespread violence in search of safety, food, shelter and health care—most within Sudan—while hundreds of thousands are sheltering in sprawling make-shift camps in neighboring countries.
Children have endured eight months of uncertainty, trauma and violence. The current situation in Sudan is a deepening children’s crisis, severely putting at risk the future of the country and heavily affecting the wider region.
Before the crisis, the situation of children was dire – Sudan had one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children in the world. More than 3 million children were acutely malnourished, of whom over 610,000 severely wasted. Without timely treatment many children will not survive. This number is expected to increase; Recurrent disease outbreaks, including measles and malaria, continue to affect large numbers of children, and the routine immunization rate had rapidly fallen with one in six children completely unprotected; 11 million people, almost one third of the population, were in need of urgent water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions while WASH-related diseases as diarrhea and cholera remained a high risk due to lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.
Nearly 7 million school-age children were out of school (one in three girls and one in four boys), and the remaining 12 million in school struggled to learn due to insufficient learning spaces and supplies, teachers, and lack of other support, including for disabled children. Of those in school, 7 out of 10 could not read and understand a simple sentence.
Sudan is faced with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis which is projected to deteriorate further if the fighting does not immediately stop, pushing the already vulnerable into a further state of desperation, and threatening millions of children’s lives daily.
Each day the fighting continues, the misery deepens for children in Sudan especially the most vulnerable.
