War in Sudan | More than a million children displaced, Darfur sinks into chaos

(Khartoum) The conflict that has been raging for two months between the army and the paramilitaries in Sudan has caused the displacement of more than a million children, more than a quarter of them in Darfur, a region cut off from all communication and edge of a “humanitarian disaster”, warned the UN.

Since April 15, fighting between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, has plunged Sudan, already one of the most poor in the world, in deep distress.

On Friday, airstrikes targeted the Bayt Al-Mal neighborhood in Oumdourdman, near the capital Khartoum. “Several houses suffered damage” and at least three people lost their lives in these strikes, according to the local “resistance committee”, one of the militant cells which organize mutual aid between the inhabitants.

For their part, the paramilitaries claimed that the army had targeted “residential areas”, causing the death of “20 people, including some inside a mosque”.

The FSR also accused the army of having targeted one of their bases where prisoners of war are held, causing 20 deaths and injuries, without specifying the exact distribution among the victims.

In the midst of the fighting, the humanitarian situation is only getting worse: hospitals in the areas of clashes are only partially functioning, when they are not closed.

Two months of war have also led to “the displacement of more than a million children, while 330 others have been killed and more than 1,900 have been injured”, said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Thursday in a statement.

UNICEF Representative in Sudan, Mandeep O’Brien, denounced “the relentless nightmare in which children are trapped”, who “bear the heaviest burden of this crisis”.

Children make up more than half of Sudan’s 45 million people, and according to UNICEF, more than 13.6 million of them are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Among these children, 620,000 suffer from acute malnutrition and half could die if no help is provided, according to the organization.

“Disaster”

In Darfur, where testimonies of large-scale violence against civilians are increasing, “270,000 children have been displaced by the conflict”, reports UNICEF.

Already devastated in the 2000s by a particularly bloody civil war, this vast region of western Sudan is heading for a new “humanitarian disaster” that the world must prevent, pleaded on Thursday the head of the UN for humanitarian affairs , Martin Griffiths.

On Friday, the World Food Program (WFP) announced that it had succeeded in distributing food there “to more than 375,000 people”.

The head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, said on Tuesday he was “particularly alarmed” by the situation in Darfur where the violence could constitute “crimes against humanity”.

The army chief on Thursday accused the RSF of having captured and killed the governor of West Darfur state, Khamis Abdullah Abakar, after an interview where he criticized the paramilitaries.

The RSF have denied being responsible but according to the UN, “convincing accounts from witnesses attribute this act to Arab militias and the RSF”.

Since the start of the fighting, more than 149,000 people have fled to Chad, according to the UN.

Around “6,000” fled the fighting in the town of El-Geneina (West Darfur), “cut off from all communication”, to find refuge in the town of Adré in Chad, the NGO Doctors Without Borders said on Friday. (MSF).

Thursday, “250 injured” were taken care of at Adré hospital, including “130 suffering from serious injuries”.

Refugees

The violence in Sudan has killed more than 2,000 people since its outbreak, according to the latest report from the NGO ACLED. More than 2.2 million people have fled the country, including more than a million from Khartoum, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). More than 528,000 refugees have found refuge in neighboring countries.

After two months of conflict, no scenario of a return to peace is on the horizon.

In Khartoum, witnesses told AFP on Friday of “air strikes” by the army in the northern suburbs, to which “anti-aircraft batteries” of the RSF responded.

Entire districts of the capital no longer have drinking water and the electricity works there for a few hours a week.

In South Kordofan, witnesses reported an attack by paramilitaries on a police station, while in El-Obeid, North Kordofan, fighting is taking place between the army and paramilitaries, according to witnesses.