CAIRO – In a stark new assessment released Monday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed that more than 300 children have been killed or injured across Sudan over the past six months, with the vast majority of these casualties linked to increasingly widespread drone strikes across the war-torn nation.
Sudan’s brutal internal conflict, which pits the country’s official military against the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has stretched on since April 2023, leaving the nation fragmented and its population in crisis. Today, the heaviest fighting is concentrated in three key regions: Kordofan, Darfur, and Blue Nile states. According to UNICEF’s casualty analysis, drone attacks account for 60 percent of all child harm recorded in the latest six-month period.
International bodies and major global powers including the United Nations, the United States, and the United Kingdom have raised urgent alarm over reports of potential mass atrocities as both factions battle for control of el-Obeid, a strategically critical city in North Kordofan. The battle for this urban center has worsened already desperate conditions for civilians trapped in the crossfire.
The full scale of the conflict’s human cost is staggering. Official estimates place the total death toll at no less than 59,000 people, while more than 13 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes to escape violence. Large swathes of the country are now on the brink of famine, and more than 30 million Sudanese – nearly two-thirds of the nation’s population – require life-saving humanitarian aid to survive.
Indiscriminate drone strikes and artillery shelling have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure that communities depend on, including schools, public markets, fuel depots, and water distribution stations. UNICEF estimates that these deliberate attacks have put more than 500,000 civilian lives at direct risk, and residents across contested areas have endured nearly a year of conditions that amount to a de facto siege, cutting them off from basic supplies and emergency care.
“Children are being caught in a relentless cycle of violence, displacement and deprivation,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s top representative for Sudan. In line with the agency’s statement, the United Nations has issued a formal call to both warring parties, demanding that they uphold international humanitarian law by protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure, grant unimpeded, rapid, and safe access for humanitarian aid convoys, and take every possible measure to shield children from the harm of ongoing conflict.