At least 435 children killed since Sudan conflict began: UNICEF

Cairo, Jul 24 (EFE).- More than 430 child deaths and 2,000 injuries have been registered since the start of the conflict in Sudan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported Monday.

“The scale of the impact that this conflict has had on children in Sudan in the past 100 days is almost beyond comprehension,” UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action Deputy Executive Ted Chaiban said in a statement during his visit to the country, adding that “every day, children are being killed, injured, abducted, and seeing the schools, hospitals and the vital infrastructure and life-saving supplies they rely on damaged, destroyed or looted.”

The agency said it received credible reports of at least 435 children killed and 2,025 injured since the conflict began on Apr. 15, an average of more than one per hour, the report read.

As these are figures reported to UNICEF sources, it is likely that the real figure is much higher in a country where almost 14 million children need humanitarian aid, the source said.

Before the crisis, which began with a rebellion by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group against the Sudanese Army, there were almost 3.8 million internally displaced people in Sudan, of whom 1.9 million were children.

It said some “1.7 million additional children have been driven from their homes and are now on the move within Sudan and crossing its borders, vulnerable to hunger, disease, violence, and separation from their families,” the statement read.

“Reports of abductions, recruitment of children into armed groups, ethnically targeted violence, and gender-based violence against women and girls are also on the rise, with 4.2 million women and girls at risk of Gender-Based Violence,” UNICEF said.

The fighting has further exacerbated the fragile humanitarian situation in Sudan, already one of the countries in the region most affected by malnutrition, and the violence has led the nation to “record levels” of famine, the World Food Program said Sunday.

According to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration, the number of refugees is now estimated at 737,801 people who have fled the violence in Sudan to other neighboring countries. EFE

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