The ongoing conflict in Sudan, escalating since April 2023, has accelerated a humanitarian crisis, particularly affecting children.
Sudan’s civil war, now in its second year as of June 2025, has displaced over 12 million people, with half being children, making it the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
The conflict has led to widespread violence, food insecurity, and the collapse of essential services, severely impacting children’s access to education and safety.
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The war has forced a significant number of children out of school, with recent data underscoring the severity. As of January 2025, UNICEF reported that more than 17 million out of 19 million school-aged children are out of school.
The disruption is attributed to schools being closed, damaged, or repurposed as shelters for displaced persons.
The war has also led to a significant number of children being reported missing or kidnapped, with reports varying across sources. The most recent figure, from CGTN Africa on June 2, 2025, cites the Sudan National Council for Child Welfare, stating that 5,000 children have been kidnapped or reported missing, and an additional 3,000 have lost their lives due to violence.
Beyond education and missing children, the war has exacerbated other humanitarian crises.
UNICEF reports that 4 million children are affected by acute malnutrition, a figure that aligns with the broader food insecurity affecting over 9 million children facing severe shortages.
The displacement crisis is equally alarming, with over 5 million children displaced since April 2023, including nearly 1 million crossing borders to Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan, making Sudan the epicentre of global child displacement.
The destruction of infrastructure, such as 1,500 schools in 2023, further compounds the issue, as noted in UN reports. This destruction, coupled with violence, has led to 3,000 children losing their lives.
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Before the crisis, the situation of children was dire – Sudan had one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children in the world. An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2025.
An estimated 770,000 of these children will suffer from the deadliest form of malnutrition, severe acute malnutrition.
Recurrent disease outbreaks, including measles and malaria, continue to affect large numbers of children, and the routine immunisation rate has rapidly fallen, with one in six children completely unprotected.
11 million people, almost one third of the population, need urgent water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, while WASH-related diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera remained a high risk due to a lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.
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