In Sudan, where conflict has raged for over two years, children are bearing the brunt of what the United Nations now calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. During a recent mission to Khartoum, Aj Jazeera, and Port Sudan, UNICEF Sudan Representative Sheldon Yett described scenes of devastation: looted warehouses reduced to rubble, families crammed into damaged buildings, and children “reduced to just skin and bones” by malnutrition. His account, delivered at a Geneva press briefing, underscored a race against time to prevent irreversible harm to an entire generation.
In Jebel Aulia, a Khartoum locality at extreme risk of famine, Yett witnessed communities grappling with collapsing infrastructure and disease outbreaks. Nearly 40% of the state’s malnutrition cases are concentrated in Jebel Aulia and Khartoum, where violence and access barriers have crippled aid delivery. Roads rendered impassable by seasonal rains and ongoing fighting further isolate families, while cholera spreads rapidly in overcrowded displacement camps. Health centers, where they exist, are overwhelmed—a stark contrast to the “safe spaces” UNICEF and partners struggle to maintain for children to learn and recover.
Despite incremental improvements in security allowing limited aid access, needs outpace resources. Funding cuts have forced some humanitarian groups to scale back operations, even as malnutrition treatment admissions hit record highs in newly reachable areas. “We are being stretched to the limit,” Yett said, emphasizing that children are dying not from a lack of solutions but from insufficient global action. Over 10 million people in Sudan are projected to face acute food insecurity by September, with 3.6 million children acutely malnourished.
The crisis extends beyond Khartoum. Frontline regions like Al Fasher, Dilling, and Kadugli remain cut off from assistance, leaving children vulnerable to starvation and preventable diseases. A displaced mother’s account of her daughter’s trauma—silent and trembling with fear—highlighted the psychological toll of prolonged conflict.
Yett praised local health workers and aid teams operating in perilous conditions but stressed that without urgent funding, sustained access, and diplomatic pressure for peace, Sudan risks a generational catastrophe. “The world must not look away,” he warned, noting that two years of war have pushed systems to collapse. As rains intensify and displacement grows, the window to avert irreversible damage narrows—a reality demanding more than resilience from Sudan’s children.
