Sudan's 24 million children would face a “disaster of a generation” if the war, which has been going on for almost nine months, continues, the head of Unicef in this poor African country told AFP.
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“The conflict in Sudan seriously jeopardizes the health and well-being of 24 million children and therefore the future of the country, with serious consequences for the entire region,” warned Mandeep O'Brien of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). , in an interview with AFP.
“It is the future of the country that is at stake: almost 20 million children will be out of school in Sudan this year unless urgent action is taken,” she said. added.
The devastating war between the head of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (FSR), Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has already caused more than 12,000 deaths since April 15, according to an estimate by the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled).
In addition, more than seven million people have been displaced, representing “the world’s largest refugee crisis,” according to the United Nations. Among them were “3.5 million children,” recalls Ms. O’Brien.
In this vast country of 48 million inhabitants, only a few provinces are spared from violence, shortages and looting: “14 million children urgently need humanitarian assistance,” she emphasizes again.
Even before the war, one in three Sudanese people suffered from hunger and seven million children were unable to go to school, especially in rural areas where almost two thirds of the population live.
The war has exacerbated these challenges arising from poverty and repeated conflicts in the country, which is Africa's third-largest gold producer and emerged in 2019 from the thirty-year Islamic military dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir.
“Unimaginable effects”
Today, asserts Ms. O'Brien, “millions of children face numerous risks: death, injury, recruitment, violence, rape.”
The United Nations and NGOs continue to warn against the use of child soldiers in Sudan, where paramilitaries and tribal militias have a long history of using children.
Currently, with almost all infrastructure destroyed or looted and numerous attacks on humanitarian workers, Ms. O'Brien continues: “7.4 million children do not have access to drinking water and more than 3.5 million children under the age of five do no access to drinking water.” The risk of contracting diseases associated with poor hygiene, such as cholera, which has already caused dozens of deaths in Sudan in recent months.
“The impact on children is unimaginable,” says Ms O’Brien, while back in October Unicef estimated that “700,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and 100,000 children require life-saving treatment for acute malnutrition accompanied by medical care.” .” Complications.
Future children are also at risk. “In 2024, 1.3 million children will be born and mothers will need professional support,” the UN official says, while most of the country's hospitals, which were already insufficient before the war, can no longer operate.
For its part, Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the “massive violations” of the rights of civilians in Sudan by the two feuding generals in a report published on Thursday, pointing in particular to the “impunity” that led to “repeated cycles of violence.” in the country for twenty years.
The human rights NGO also denounces double standards: “Western governments initially refused to support an accountability mechanism for Sudan because they did not want to devote the same resources and effort to a similar mechanism in Ukraine.”