Twenty years after the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region first sparked global outrage, children in the region are once again trapped in a catastrophic cycle of violence, hunger, and displacement — but this time, the world is failing to take notice, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday. The UN agency warns that, while the horrors of 2005 are repeating, the scale of the crisis is far greater now, and international attention is dangerously lacking.
In a new Child Alert report, UNICEF stated that the mass atrocities in Darfur 20 years ago reverberated as far as Hollywood. Today, however, millions of Sudanese children are facing attacks, hunger, and displacement in an emergency that is largely being ignored by the outside world.
Across Darfur, children bear the heaviest burden of the conflict. Many have lost access to education and healthcare, while mounting numbers face severe malnutrition, disease, and violence perpetrated by armed forces or groups.
Millions of children have been displaced, with large-scale displacement across borders, particularly into eastern Chad, where services are already overwhelmed and struggling to cope with new arrivals.
Sheldon Yett, the UNICEF representative in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the devastating war in Sudan, now in its fourth year, is repeating history 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, Yett described the situation of children in the western Sudan region as “catastrophic” and emphasized that more than five million children across the five Darfur states are facing “extreme deprivation.”
He said that in just the first 90 days of this year, at least 245 children were reportedly killed or injured, adding that the true toll is "likely far higher."
Intense fighting broke out on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the capital, Khartoum. The violence quickly spread across Sudan, forcing millions from their homes. What began as a power struggle between the SAF and the RSF has resulted in the collapse of healthcare, food systems, and civilian protection nationwide.
The scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan is unprecedented. An estimated 33.7 million people — nearly two-thirds of Sudan's population — currently require humanitarian assistance and protection. Among those in dire need are over 20 million children.
Today, the frontlines are "consistently moving," with active fighting occurring in the Kordofan region and Blue Nile state. As in other modern conflicts, attack drones are being used widely and intensely, according to the UNICEF representative.
This includes drone strikes against humanitarian infrastructure and convoys, with multiple cases recorded over the past few months.
Last Friday, a truck carrying emergency shelter kits for displaced people in Tawila from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) came under drone attack in North Darfur State. Tawila is a place where 700,000 people have sought safety after fleeing fighting in other parts of Darfur.
Although the driver escaped unharmed, the fire destroyed all the supplies, leaving over 1,300 families living in "desperate conditions" without shelter, according to a statement released by the UNHCR on Sunday. The statement expressed deep concern about the sharp increase in the use of drones in Sudan since the beginning of 2026, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
“We've had the feeling that no place is safe,” UNICEF’s Yett said.
“Markets are being hit, schools are being hit, health centers 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 conflict's impact on children has been most severe in North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher.
Its 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 denied 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.
And the trend is worsening. In the first three months of 2026 alone, at least 160 children were reportedly killed, and 85 were injured, which is a significant increase compared to the same period last year. However, these harrowing figures likely underrepresent the true scale of atrocities committed against children.
Grave violations against children include: killing and maiming, abduction, recruitment and use, rape and other forms of sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access. Since the war began, the United Nations has verified more than 5,700 grave violations against children across Sudan by parties to the conflict, impacting at least 5,100 children. Of those children, over 4,300 have been killed or maimed.
Concurrently, Sudan is the only country in the world where famine has been confirmed in multiple areas and continues to spread. Across the country, over 4.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including 800,000 with severe acute malnutrition.
In El Fasher, famine conditions were confirmed in November 2025. In parts of Darfur, acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 50 percent, said Yett.
Although the siege of El Fasher has ended, the UNICEF representative said its impact continues to shape the daily lives of children — "both those who fled and those forced to stay."
He emphasized that the crisis "does not stop at Sudan's borders," as children are also fleeing to neighboring 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,” 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.”
UNICEF warns that humanitarian relief efforts are severely limited by insecurity, bureaucratic obstacles, and insufficient funding, leaving many children cut off from assistance during times of greatest risk.
These constraints are compounding an already severe hunger crisis across the country.
Sudan: A crisis of unprecedented hunger and displacement
Sudan is facing an unprecedented hunger crisis. Three years into the war, the country continues to slide into famine, which is characterized by widespread hunger and a significant surge in acute malnutrition.
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, over 19 million people in Sudan are currently experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or worse).
The rapid deterioration of food security has left approximately 146,000 people in catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5). It is estimated that more than 4.9 million people are experiencing emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
Additionally, Sudan continues to experience the world's largest displacement crisis. Although approximately 4 million people have returned to their communities since last year, nearly 14 million remain displaced due to ongoing warfare and earlier conflict.
The total number of internally displaced people has decreased, yet nearly 9 million remain displaced within Sudan's borders amid continued returns to Khartoum and the eastern states. To date, nearly 5 million people have fled to neighboring countries due to the ongoing war or earlier conflicts, and they urgently need support.
Neighboring countries face growing pressure. Chad hosts over 900,000 Sudanese refugees, and South Sudan hosts over 1.3 million refugees and returnees despite facing its own humanitarian crisis. Egypt has received approximately 1.5 million people, and Libya has received over 500,000.
Humanitarian organizations warn that families displaced by the war are facing extreme hunger, repeated displacement, and the total loss of their livelihoods. Many families have been displaced multiple times, further compounding their losses and exacerbating their exhaustion.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the war is having a devastating impact on people’s health, with the health emergency intensifying in areas where fighting persists. According to WHO, around 21 million people require health assistance.
Further information
Full text: Darfur: 20 Years On, Children Under Threat, UNICEF, report, published April 28, 2026
https://www.unicef.org/media/180271/file/FINAL_2026_Child_Alert_Darfur.pdf