Geneva: Children in Sudan’s conflict-ravaged Darfur region are living on the edge of abandonment, as relentless violence and insecurity make humanitarian access increasingly fragile, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned. Reaching even a single child now requires days of negotiations, multiple clearances and dangerous journeys across hostile terrain, underscoring the extreme challenges facing aid workers on the ground.
Briefing journalists after a 10-day mission to Darfur, Eva Hinds, UNICEF’s Chief of Communications, described the delivery of assistance as an exceptionally careful and fragile operation. Convoys must navigate sandy roads through volatile areas, often under the constant threat of violence, just to reach isolated communities in desperate need.
“What I saw was beyond anything I had previously experienced,” Hinds said. “The sheer scale of displacement, the fractured nature of the fighting, and the near-total collapse of basic services have pushed every child to the brink. Survival itself has become uncertain.”
Sudan has been engulfed in a brutal civil war since April 2023, as rival factions the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) battle for control of the country. Nearly three years into the conflict, the fighting has claimed more than 150,000 lives, forced around 10 million people from their homes, and triggered widespread hunger and deprivation, with ripple effects across neighbouring states.
Even for a seasoned humanitarian, the situation in Tawila was deeply shocking, Hinds said. There, hundreds of thousands of displaced people have constructed an entire settlement from sticks, hay and plastic sheets. “It felt like a whole city had been torn from its roots and rebuilt out of fear, urgency and desperation,” she recalled.
An estimated 500,000 to 600,000 people are sheltering in Tawila alone. Standing amid endless rows of makeshift huts, Hinds described the scene as overwhelming, a stark symbol of what she called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Despite the insecurity, UNICEF and its partners have managed to deliver lifesaving support. In just two weeks, aid teams vaccinated more than 140,000 children, treated thousands suffering from illness and severe malnutrition, restored access to safe drinking water, set up temporary learning spaces, and provided food and psychosocial care.
“This is slow, risky and painstaking work carried out one convoy, one clinic and one classroom at a time,” Hinds said. “But for children in Darfur, it represents the fragile line between being forgotten and being helped.”
At centres supporting women and girls, mothers spoke of their daily struggles, describing severe shortages of food, blankets and warm clothing. “Our children are freezing,” one mother told the UNICEF official. “We have nothing to wrap them in.”
Hinds warned that while the crisis in Sudan has reached unprecedented proportions, it remains largely out of global focus. Restricted access, a highly complex conflict and competition from other international emergencies have left the suffering of millions of children largely unseen.
“Sudan today is the world’s biggest humanitarian emergency, yet one of the least visible,” she said. “What is unfolding is a catastrophe on an immense scale. Sudan’s children urgently need sustained international attention and decisive action. Without it, the suffering of the country’s youngest and most vulnerable will only intensify.”