UN warns of ‘deafening silence’ as Darfur child crisis repeats 20 years later
April 29, 2026 (PORT SUDAN) – Two decades after the world first turned its eyes toward the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday that history is repeating itself with a “deafening silence” from the international community.
Launching the latest UNICEF Child Alert in a briefing from Geneva and Port Sudan, officials said more than 5 million children across the five Darfur states are now facing extreme deprivation. Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Sudan, noted that while the region captured global attention twenty years ago, the current scale of the crisis is being met with relative indifference.
The report highlights a staggering humanitarian toll, with approximately 15 million people uprooted from their homes across Sudan, including 5 million children. In the city of El Fasher alone, more than 1,500 grave violations against children have been verified since April 2024. These include the killing and maiming of over 1,300 children, many by drone strikes and explosive weapons.
Famine conditions were confirmed in El Fasher in November 2025, and health officials report that global acute malnutrition rates have exceeded 50 per cent in some locations. The collapse of infrastructure has left over 3 million children in the region out of school, while routine immunization programs have been decimated by attacks on clinics and the looting of medical supplies.
UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said the Child Alert is designed to provide journalists with hard data and field evidence to paint a clear picture of the “catastrophic situation.” He noted that this is only the second time in twenty years that a Child Alert has focused specifically on Darfur, underlining the cyclical nature of the violence.
The conflict has also seen a rise in the recruitment of children by armed groups and widespread sexual violence. Yett described an environment where markets, schools, and humanitarian convoys are frequently targeted, stating that the intensification of the conflict has left children with nowhere safe to turn.
Despite the escalating needs, the U.N.’s 2026 humanitarian appeal for Sudan remains critically underfunded at only 16 per cent. UNICEF officials warned that without urgent and flexible funding, life-saving services—including malnutrition treatment and the provision of safe water—will be at risk for millions of children who are currently being pushed to the brink of survival.