UNICEF says children lives on brink of survival’ in Darfur ‘hard and fragile’
By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS – UNICEF warned Friday that most children are living “on the brink” of survival in Darfur, reaching a single child can take days of negotiations, security clearances and travel across sandy roads that cut through shifting frontlines is ‘hard and fragile’ battle.
Eva Hinds, the UNICEF Chief of Communications in Geneva described a humanitarian response that is fragile, painstaking and essential, after her 10-day mission to Darfur.
The rival militaries who were former allies have been battling for control of the shattered country, engaged in a brutal civil conflict that has destablised multiple countries bordering Sudan.
“In Darfur today, reaching a single child can take days of negotiation, security clearances, and travel across sand roads under shifting frontlines,” she said.
“Nothing about this crisis is simple: every movement is hard-won, every delivery fragile.”
Ms. Hinds had returned from Tawila, in North Darfur, where she witnessed what she described as an entire city rebuilt from desperation.
Thousands of people have fled violence and erected makeshift shelters from sticks, hay and plastic sheeting, she noted.
“Over 500,000 to 600,000 people are sheltering there,” she reported.
“But standing inside that vast expanse of makeshift shelters was overwhelming. It felt like an entire city uprooted and rebuilt out of necessity and fear.”
UNICEF and its partners are still reaching children despite the insecurity and logistical hurdles.
Over 140,000 children were vaccinated, thousands treated for illness and malnutrition, safe water restored to tens of thousands, and temporary classrooms opened, UNICEF reported
Ms Hinds said “It is painstaking, precarious work delivered one convoy, one clinic, one classroom at a time but for children in Darfur, it is the thin line between being abandoned and being reached,”.
She described meeting Doha, a teenage girl newly arrived from Al Fasher, who dreams of returning to school and one day teaching English. “Her name refers to the soft light just after sunrise,” Ms Hinds said. “She embodies that image – hopeful and determined.”
“These personal stories reflect only a small part of a much wider situation,” Ms Hinds said, stressed that Sudan is now the world’s largest humanitarian emergency, yet one of the least visible.
“What I witnessed is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding on a massive scale,” she warned.
“Sudan’s children urgently need international attention and decisive action. Without it, the horrors facing the country’s youngest and most vulnerable will only deepen.”
