United Nations: Darfur’s Children Living on the Edge

An official from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has emphasized that children in Sudan urgently require international attention and decisive action.

She warned that without such intervention, the atrocities facing children there will only deepen, describing what she witnessed in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe unfolding on a massive scale.”

Eva Hinds, Chief of Communication for UNICEF in Sudan, spoke to reporters in Geneva today (Friday) regarding a recent 10-day mission to Darfur. “Even with years of experience working in emergencies, what I witnessed was unlike anything I have seen before,” she stated.

Hinds continued, “The scale of displacement, the fragmentation of the conflict, and the collapse of basic services have created a situation where every child is living on the edge.”

Regarding the situation in Tawila, the UNICEF official described the vast expanse of makeshift shelters: “It felt as if an entire city had been uprooted and rebuilt out of necessity and fear. It is a city rebuilt from despair, larger than my hometown of Helsinki, and every one of those families is there because they had no choice but to flee.”