Sudan, after six weeks of conflict, over 13.6 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian aid

ROME – As the sixth week of conflict ends in Sudan, more than 13.6 million children are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian support, the highest number on record in the country. Therefore, the civil war that broke out on April 15 does not stop. And this, despite several formally declared “ceasefires”. Clashes between President-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continue in the capital Khartoum. The impact of the violence on the civilian population therefore continues to threaten the lives and futures of families and children, leaving basic services disrupted and several health facilities closed, damaged or destroyed. An already disastrous situation for minors before the conflict is now at levels that one does not hesitate to define as “catastrophic”, as regards the possibility of being able to eat regularly every day, access to safe water, electricity, telecommunications. Over a million people have fled their homes and are internally displaced in Sudan, including 320,000 people who have crossed into neighboring countries, half of whom are children.

One emergency adds to another. The need for humanitarian assistance has never been more important to Sudan’s children, as the most vulnerable populations struggle to survive and be protected. Access to basic necessities is becoming increasingly difficult to secure. Before the conflict, nearly 9 million children were already in urgent need of humanitarian aid. “As the conflict rages on in Sudan, the toll on children continues to become more devastating every day,” said Adele Khodr, regional director of theUNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa. “These children are not just numbers, but individuals with families, dreams and aspirations.”

On the field despite the very tough challenges. Without an immediate and widespread humanitarian response, the consequences of displacement, lack of basic social services and protection will have devastating – and long-term – effects on children. The overall appeal is increased by $253 million to address additional urgent needs, including expanding care for more than 620,000 children affected by severe acute malnutrition, half of whom could die if not helped in time. Khodr added that “despite the challenges of humanitarian access and security due to the ongoing conflict, theUNICEF continues to operate in Sudan and together with its partners, has managed to deliver much needed health, water and sanitation and nutrition aid across the country”.

The effects of the work of UNICEF:

1) – deliver 2,300 tons of health, nutrition, water and sanitation, learning and child protection supplies to the displaced population in Madani and to states across the country;
2) – maintain immunization services in 12 states, ensuring vaccine supplies and distribution, as well as guaranteeing and monitoring the cold chain system. At least 244,000 children with zero dose polio have been reached since the start of the latest conflict on April 15;
3) – Maintain more than 80% of Malnutrition Treatment Centers (OTPs) across Sudan for severely malnourished children;
4) – deliver 1,440 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) and sanitary and hygienic materials for over 300 children in a center for orphans in Khartoum. Without these treatments, these children would be at high risk of dying;
5) – Provide safe water for 104,000 people through water transport, operation and maintenance, and rehabilitation of water supply facilities; 92,000 people were reached with key hygiene messages and hygiene-related non-food items; latrines were secured for 1,000 internally displaced persons;
6) – offer psychosocial support to at least 5,500 children and their parents traumatized by the violence in Sudan. Monitoring systems have also been activated to report and report violence against children;
7) Maintain a total of 356 Alternative Learning Program (ALP) centers in 10 states, including West Darfur, and provide safe learning spaces for 16,812 girls and boys;
8) – maintain 42 e-learning centers in East Darfur, Kassala, Red Sea, South Darfur and White Nile, benefiting 2,520 girls and boys, and a child-friendly space in Port Sudan, benefiting of 117 children.

The reasons for the conflict. About two years ago, in October 2021, General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan and the other general Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed Hemedti, led a coup that effectively paralyzed any process of change, of transition in the direction of a government in the hands of civilians, much desired by the population after the ouster of Omar al-Bashir. For his part, Burhan, who had reached the highest levels of the military hierarchy under Bashir’s dictatorship, remained in his top position; and Dagalo, always at the head of the Rizeigat militiamen who defend the interests of nomadic shepherds in the Darfur region, also became his de facto deputy.

“A Risky Business Marriage”. Many immediately defined it like this, a sort of “union that makes strength” with the sole purpose, moreover declared, of neutralizing the requests and protests of civil society, on the contrary striving towards a transition towards a new institutional structure, without the presence of the military, in a “normal” democratic system in a geopolitically important and immense country: it is in fact the third African country in terms of territorial extension. Thus it was that between the two generals, never really allies, let alone friends, intolerance, irritation and resentment began to emerge until ‘Hemedti’ came out saying that the coup he had hatched together with Burhan had been a serious mistake. Not only that, but he didn’t like the idea of ​​integrating “his” paramilitary units into the regular army at all.

Interests related to gold mining. We are currently in open war which, as usual, falls on the heads of the civilian population. The prospects for peace will first have to deal with a very complicated situation: because, on the one hand, Burhan says that Hamedti is a criminal, he replies by putting a bounty on his opponent’s head. In other words, the two are challenging each other for control of absolute power in the country. In the background of it all, it is no mystery to anyone that Hamedti’s men – the cruel militia of the ‘Janjaweed’, the ‘devils on horseback’, responsible for heinous massacres during the Darfur civil war in the 2000s – are especially interested in the business related to the extraction of gold mines and the immense wealth it has produced and continues to produce. Just as all members of the Sudanese military caste who participated in the coup are strongly interested in control.