Almost 1.7 million Sudanese children forced to flee home amid conflict: UNICEF
Aug 05, 2023
Khartoum [Sudan], August 5 : Almost 1.7 million Sudanese children are forced to flee homes amid the raging conflict in Sudan, the United Nations' children's agency said on Saturday, according to CNN.
This figure adds to the 1.9 million children who were already displaced in Sudan before this latest crisis.
“Three million children under five are malnourished with 700,000 at risk of severe acute malnutrition and mortality. 1.7 million children under the age of one are at risk of missing critical vaccinations, raising the risk of disease outbreaks,” Ted Chaiban, UNICEF's deputy executive director, stated in a press conference on Friday, according to CNN.
Chaiban also said that 14 million children in Sudan are in "dire need" of humanitarian assistance as the country's violent conflict exacerbates its hunger crisis.
"The numbers are staggering. Almost 14 million children – a number roughly equivalent to every single child in Colombia, France, Germany, or Thailand – are in dire need of humanitarian support," UNICEF said, according to CNN.
According to UNICEF, at least 435 children have been murdered and over 2,025 have been injured since the Sudan crisis began in mid-April.
The UN warned on Thursday that over 20 million people in Sudan are suffering from extreme hunger, a statistic that has nearly doubled since last year.
The conflict in Sudan broke out in mid-April between soldiers loyal to Sudanese army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, paramilitary RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Since former President Omar al-Bashir was deposed in a popular revolt in 2019, leaders of the army and the RSF have held the main seats on Sudan's executive council.
They plotted a coup in 2021, just as the council was set to give over authority to civilians, before clashing over the line of command and reforming the RSF as part of the scheduled transition, Al Jazeera reported.
