UNICEF issues warning about children in Darfur – “History repeats itself in the darkest of ways”

Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video from Port Sudan on Tuesday, Mr. Yit said that Darfur had… “I shocked the world twenty years ago,” When an entire generation of children became victims or survivors of horrific atrocities, today children are living a reality “More cruel” However, global interest “It does not come close to matching the extent of the suffering that children are experiencing.”

He added: “As we did two decades ago, today UNICEF is launching a new Children Alert to sound the alarm about the catastrophic situation for children in Darfur. Children have reached a breaking point. Across the region, childhood is once again defined by fear and loss. Homes have been burned, schools and health facilities have been damaged or completely destroyed. Families have been forced to flee – often repeatedly, and often with nothing with them. It is children who bear the heaviest burden of this war.”

The UNICEF representative stated that more than five million children face severe deprivation in the five states of Darfur, where they continue to be killed and maimed, and pushed towards extreme hunger, disease and psychological trauma – especially children in the city of El Fasher, who continue to feel the effects of the siege even after it ends.

Mr. Yate said that famine conditions were confirmed in El Fasher last November, and malnutrition rates among children had reached catastrophic levels in parts of Darfur.

“They don’t need pity”

Despite the extraordinary challenges, UNICEF and its partners are working to respond to the needs, “but humanitarian action is being pushed to its limits,” said Yate.

And he said: “What is needed now is not theoretical. We need predictable and sustainable humanitarian access, and a permanent humanitarian presence across Darfur – not just temporary corridors, but the ability to stay and deliver aid regularly and safely. Movement must be facilitated, not hampered. Civilians must be protected, with children in particular at the heart of these efforts. Schools, clinics, water systems and humanitarian convoys must be spared from attack.”

Yate added that there is an urgent need for flexible funding commensurate with the scale and urgency of this crisis, especially since UNICEF’s 2026 humanitarian appeal for Sudan was only 16 percent funded.

He concluded his speech by saying: “Children in Darfur do not need pity. They need the world to act now. The fate of an entire generation is at stake.”