UNICEF: Escalating Fighting in El Obeid Puts 500,000 Sudanese Children at Risk
New York – Mashawir
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned of a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan, reporting that more than 3.5 million people have fled the country as refugees, while over 6.5 million people have been internally displaced since 2023. Children continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, with 8 million Sudanese children out of school and more than 5,700 grave violations against children documented.
UNICEF said that the intensifying fighting in and around El Obeid has placed approximately 500,000 Sudanese children at risk, exposing them to an immediate and growing threat of death, injury, and displacement.
For nearly two weeks, the strategic city of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State, has witnessed escalating insecurity due to continuous drone attacks allegedly carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), raising serious concerns over further deterioration of the humanitarian and security situation.
Human rights organizations have also accused the RSF of deliberately disrupting fuel supplies in North Kordofan and White Nile states in an effort to push El Obeid toward a humanitarian collapse, in what they describe as a scenario similar to that experienced by El Fasher in North Darfur last year.
