Five million children across Sudan’s Darfur region face extreme deprivation as war grinds into its fourth year, UNICEF warned on Tuesday.
The agency issued a rare “Child Alert,” signalling crisis levels unseen in Darfur for two decades amid escalating violence and humanitarian collapse.
UNICEF representative Sheldon Yett described childhood in Darfur as shaped by fear, loss, and destruction, with homes, schools, and clinics reduced to ruins.
He said children are bearing the heaviest burden, killed, maimed, displaced, and pushed into hunger, disease, and deep psychological trauma.
Darfur remains a focal point of brutal fighting since April 2023, when conflict erupted between General Abdel Fattah al Burhan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces.
Despite worsening conditions, UNICEF said global attention has waned, with its Sudan appeal receiving only 16 percent of required funding this year.
Across the country, at least 160 children were killed and 85 injured in early 2026, marking a sharp rise from last year.
Meanwhile, famine-level acute malnutrition has spread to additional areas of North Darfur, tightening its grip on an already starving population.
As the conflict deepens, Darfur’s children remain trapped in a relentless cycle of violence, their futures dimmed by a war with no clear end.
