Number of children in need of humanitarian assistance in Sudan doubles as conflict enters third year amid ‘perfect storm’ of threats to children

PORT SUDAN/AMMAN/NEW YORK, 15 April 2025 – As the conflict in Sudan enters its third year, the number of children in need of humanitarian assistance has doubled, from 7.8 million at the start of 2023 to more than 15 million today.  

Without urgent action, Sudan’s dire humanitarian crisis could tip into greater catastrophe. Violence by parties against children, hunger and disease are surging. Displacement continues to disrupt lives, access by humanitarian actors to families and funding are shrinking, and the May-October rainy season – which often results in disruptive flooding and a surge in malnutrition and disease - looms.

“Two years of violence and displacement have shattered the lives of millions of children across Sudan.  Needs continue to outpace humanitarian funding,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “With the rainy season around the corner, children who are already reeling from malnutrition and disease will be harder to reach. I urge the international community to seize this pivotal window for action and step up for Sudan’s children.”

Sudan is enduring the world’s largest humanitarian and child displacement crises. Half of the more than 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance this year are children. The conflict has displaced nearly 15 million people within Sudan and across borders. More than half of those displaced are children. Almost one in three are under the age of five. In areas where opportunities to return arise, unexploded ordnance and limited access to essential services put children’s lives at heightened risk. Famine is spreading, vaccination rates are dropping, and about 90 per cent of children are out of school.

The situation is being compounded by a deadly combination of interlinked factors:

The number of grave violations against children* has surged by 1000 per cent in two years.

While such violations were previously confined to regions such as Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan, the ongoing conflict across the country has led to grave violations being verified in more than half of Sudan’s 18 states. The most recurrent grave violations verified in Sudan include killing and maiming, abductions of children and attacks on schools and hospitals.  The Darfurs, Khartoum, Aljazeera and South Kordofan reported the highest number of grave violations over the last two years.

Famine has already taken hold in at least five locations. Five further areas are on the brink of famine, with 17 others at risk. With the rainy season approaching, concerningly, seven of these localities are also vulnerable to flooding - six in the Darfurs and one in North Kordofan. Between 2022 and 2024, around 60 per cent of annual admissions for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) occurred during the rainy season. If that trend holds, between May and October this year, up to 462,000 children could suffer SAM.

Disease outbreaks are also expected to surge. In 2024 alone, 49,000 cholera cases and more than 11,000 cases of dengue fever were reported - 60 per cent affecting mothers and children. These outbreaks are worsened by the effects of the rainy season - including water contamination, poor sanitation, and increased displacement and population movement.

Access by humanitarian actors to children is deteriorating due to the intensity of the conflict and to restrictions or bureaucratic impediments imposed by Government authorities or other armed groups. In 2024, over 60 per cent of UNICEF’s aid deliveries were delayed amid a highly volatile security environment. Although no missions were cancelled or aborted, these repeated delays disrupted the timely delivery of assistance and hindered access to children in urgent need.

Funding for life-saving services is critically low, threatening to halt essential health, nutrition, education and protection programmes for children and families and costing lives. UNICEF is appealing for US$1 billion for its response in Sudan in 2025. The requirements amount to just US$76 per person for the entire year - only US$0.26 per day – to deliver essential support to those in need. To date, UNICEF has US$266.6 million available for this response, with most rolled over from 2024 and just US$12 million received in 2025.

In 2024, UNICEF and partners provided psychosocial counseling, education, and protection services to 2.7 million children and caregivers in Sudan, reached over 9.8 million children and families with safe drinking water, screened 6.7 million children for malnutrition and provided lifesaving treatment for 422,000 of them. UNICEF continues to prioritise life-saving interventions in conflict zones and also supports displaced populations and host communities in safer areas, providing essential services and support.

“Sudan is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world today, but it is not getting the world’s attention,” said Russell. “We cannot abandon the children of Sudan. We have the expertise and the resolve to scale up our support, but we need access and sustained funding. Most of all, children in Sudan need this horrific conflict to end.”

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