Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda and Erick Kikomeko at 1134 EAT on Monday 12 January 2026

One thousand days into Sudan conflict, children bear the brunt as UNICEF scales up lifelines

One thousand days into Sudan’s brutal conflict, children continue to pay the highest price—and the world is falling dangerously behind.

Since fighting erupted in April 2023, Sudan has spiralled into one of the largest and most devastating humanitarian crises on the planet. By 2026, an estimated 33.7 million people—nearly two-thirds of the population—will require urgent humanitarian assistance, half of them children. Widespread violations of international humanitarian law, combined with severe access constraints, have turned the crisis into a full-scale emergency threatening children’s survival.

In response, UNICEF has unveiled a data-driven, scaled-up program of lifelines aimed at reaching the most vulnerable children. The agency’s latest interventions focus on nutrition, healthcare, water and sanitation, and education, targeting areas hardest hit by the conflict. UNICEF warns that without immediate and sustained support, millions of children face life-threatening conditions and long-term developmental setbacks.

Despite these challenges, UNICEF and its partners are deploying innovative, high-impact approaches—leveraging real-time nutrition tracking, mobile health and water systems, rapid-response child protection teams, and cross-border delivery strategies—to reach children in previously inaccessible areas.
Yet even these innovations cannot keep up with the scale of the crisis.

Children under attack

Children continue to face deadly risks. This week alone, eight children were reportedly killed in an attack on Al Obeid in North Kordofan. More than 5 million children have been displaced, averaging 5,000 children every day, with many forced to move repeatedly as violence spreads.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war
Sexual violence is being used systematically as a weapon of war in Sudan, putting millions of children at risk. Survivors include children as young as one year old.

A hunger emergency outpacing aid
An estimated 21 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity in 2026. Famine has already been confirmed in Al Fasher and Kadugli, with 20 additional areas across Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan at risk.

In North Darfur—the epicentre of Sudan’s malnutrition crisis—nearly 85,000 children with severe acute malnutrition were treated between January and November 2025, equivalent to one child every six minutes. Collapsing health systems, unsafe water, and the breakdown of basic services are driving deadly disease outbreaks and placing 3.4 million children under five at immediate risk.

What’s new—and why it matters
Amid extraordinary insecurity, UNICEF’s response is evolving to reach children in the hardest-hit areas.

These approaches are saving lives—but only in areas where access and funding are available.

A call to early adopters: act first, act fast
UNICEF is urging governments, donors, development banks, philanthropic innovators, and private-sector partners to become early adopters of scaled, flexible, and access-enabling humanitarian action in Sudan.

Key priorities include:
Front-loading funding for nutrition, health, water, and child protection programs
Supporting innovative access mechanisms and localized delivery models
Using diplomatic leverage to ensure safe, sustained, and unimpeded humanitarian access
Demanding compliance with international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians

Humanitarian action can keep children alive—but only peace can keep them safe
The moral deadline has passed.

Children in Sudan are not mere statistics. They are frightened, hungry, and displaced—but also determined, resilient, and still reaching for hope. Every day they wait is another day the world fails them.

Ending the conflict is no longer just urgent—it is a moral necessity.
The next 1,000 days cannot repeat the failures of the past, Devdiscourse reports.

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