Sudan: Save The Children, an organisation based in UK, has issued a report stating that over 10 million children in Sudan are living in an active war zone. The charity called on political leaders to take immediate action to end the conflict.
The report also highlights that about half of Sudan’s children are either presently on or within a five-kilometre radius of the front lines of combat. This puts them at risk of being exposed to gunfire, shelling, air strikes, and other forms of brutality. The organisation collaborated with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) to produce a report that emphasises a 60 percent growth in the number of children exposed to violence since the beginning of the conflict.
The political standoff between Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, escalated into open conflict in April 2023. According to a recent mutual analysis, over 10 million children were exposed to violence, including battles, bombings, mortar and missile strikes, and direct attacks on civilians, since fighting started in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in April 2023.
The report highlights that the majority of these violent events take place in densely colonised areas, such as cities and towns with residents over 100,000, which raises the possibility of reciting traumatic experiences for many children.
Dr Arif Noor, the group’s head in Sudan, commented that, “These findings show how dangerously close to death and injury so many children in Sudan have been over the past year of war. The situation has reached boiling point. Children in Sudan have suffered unimaginably. They have seen killings, massacres, bullet-littered streets, dead bodies and shelled homes while they live with the all-too-real fear that they, themselves, could be killed, injured, recruited to fight or subject to sexual violence.”
Noor reported that millions of children in Sudan are suffering from inadequate food, malnutrition, and disease due to the collapsing health system. Moreover, the ongoing conflict has forced nine million people to flee their homes, leading to an impending famine in many parts of the country.
The report highlights that four million of these people are children, with 230,000 children and new mothers at risk of dying from hunger if no action is taken. Over 12,000 civilians were killed in Sudan, with millions displaced and in need of aid. Despite calls for a ceasefire, the fighting continues and funding for the United Nations’ response plan remains critically low.
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