UNICEF in Sudan

Key points

• Over 15 million children in Sudan are affected by ongoing conflict that has gripped the nation since April 15, 2023; climate shocks only add to the widespread suffering.

• Risks to children's health, safety and well-being include exposure to violence, abuse and exploitation, forced displacement, disease, hunger and malnutrition.

• Ongoing UNICEF programs and partnerships are providing health care, nutrition, education and protection, but the work is chronically underfunded; more donor support is urgently needed to enable UNICEF to reach more children and families. You can help.

Polycrisis for children in Sudan

Sudan, already one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child, has become even more perilous amid full-scale armed conflict between warring groups.

Poverty and hunger were already widespread when heavy fighting broke out in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, quickly spreading into other cities in regions. Within months, over 6 million people had been forcibly displaced by the violence, half of them children, making it the largest child displacement crisis in the world.

A devastating hunger catastrophe continues to unfold on a scale not seen since the Darfur crisis in the early 2000s. Food, water and other essential supplies are scarce, access to essential services sharply curtailed. Prices for staples have soared. Schools and health facilities are closed or poorly functioning. 

By the time the Sudan war had entered its third year, the number of children in need of humanitarian assistance had doubled to 15 million amid increasing violence, famine and disease. 

Despite constraints in funding and humanitarian access, UNICEF remains on the ground inside Sudan, working with dozens of local NGOs and other partners to deliver emergency supplies and devise ways to continue critical programs in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and child protection.

UNICEF is also working in neighboring countries to assist refugees fleeing conflict and to support host communities that are themselves in need of humanitarian aid.

How UNICEF is helping Sudanese children

UNICEF has long been focused on improving critical services and providing lifesaving support and protection to the most vulnerable children and families in Sudan. And conflict is not the only factor in their suffering; there are also natural hazards to contend with, such as drought and flooding, conditions that have become more frequent and more intense due to climate change. Climate shocks have also uprooted millions of people from their homes, jobs and lives, sometimes many times over.

Priority programs for UNICEF and partners in Sudan include:

• Health — including supporting primary health care centers and hospitals; providing medicines and medical supplies; working with partners to bolster the country's fragile health system and increase immunization rates among children to prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease; protecting and strengthening the cold chain to preserve essential medicines including vaccines; and providing mental health and psychosocial support to traumatized children
• Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) — including providing safe drinking water and strengthening or restoring critical WASH services
• Nutrition — including screening and treating children for malnutrition; UNICEF is the lead supplier of the ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) used to treat child wasting, a leading cause of death among Sudanese children under 5 
• Child protection — including monitoring and reporting violence against children and other grave violations of child rights; identifying unaccompanied and separated children and reuniting them with their families; preventing and responding to gender-based violence
• Education — including improving access to formal or informal schooling to address learning poverty

As needs increase across all these program areas, funding gaps grow ever wider due to sharp decreases in humanitarian aid.

More support from donors is required to allow UNICEF to keep delivering for children and families.

Learn more: read UNICEF's latest appeal for Sudan.

Supporting education, child protection in Sudan

Even before armed conflict shuttered all educational institutions across Sudan in spring 2023, millions of children across the country were out of school.

UNICEF works to keep kids learning in schools or alternative spaces, through digital means or in child-friendly spaces that UNICEF sets up in refugee camps and other sites where displaced families are sheltering. Child-friendly spaces also connect children with other services including mental health and psychosocial support.

Child protection teams also work to help keep children safe. UNICEF monitors child rights violations in the country, including the rising number of children being forcibly recruited by armed groups, which not only puts them in physical danger but also causes mental distress. Many of these children become victims of gender-based violence.

Flexible funding helps emergency response teams stay nimble

Despite insecurity, logistical challenges and access constraints, UNICEF and partners have continued to reach children in Sudan with lifesaving support, finding ways to keep supplies coming.

After the factory and warehouses run by Sudan's only domestic manufacturer of RUTF were burned down — destroying thousands of cartons bound for malnutrition treatment centers — UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder called it "yet another bitter blow" and the "darkest, most distinct illustration to date of how the conflict threatened the lives of children through multiple means."

Yet, Elder added, "somewhat miraculously" and "certainly heroically," outpatient therapeutic programs continued to operate — a testament to UNICEF’s partners, and the health workers of Sudan.

It also put into stark relief the importance of flexible funding in helping emergency response teams stay nimble, ensuring that resources are deployed wherever and whenever they are needed the most.

Flexible funding remains the best way to ensure that UNICEF can continue delivering lifesaving protection and support to children and families suffering the impacts of conflict and related crises in Sudan. 

Having maintained a presence in the country since the 1950s, UNICEF remains committed to staying and delivering for children, especially the most vulnerable. 

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