UNICEF Reports At Least 13 Children Killed in North Darfur Fighting

The fighting between the Sudanese army and rival paramilitary forces in North Darfur, Sudan, has killed at least 13 children and wounded four others, UNICEF said.

These children were aged between 6 and 17, the UN agency said in a statement on Sunday.

On Friday, the Sudanese army launched air strikes targeting a market in the town of Al Kuma, around 70 kilometres east of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, reported the local Daily Sudan Post.

According to the Sudan Tribune news portal and the Central Observatory for Human Rights, the air strikes, which also hit the town of Mellit, killed at least 45 people and wounded dozens more.

Hamrat al-Sheikh, in North Kordofan, was also hit, according to Mohammed H. al-Ta’ishi, a former member of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, who said on Saturday that the strikes targeted areas that ‘have not seen any form of confrontation since the start of the war’.

In April 2023, the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread throughout the country. 

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‘These attacks on children are unacceptable. Children have no role to play in war or civil conflict, but it is they who suffer most from the continuing conflict in Sudan,’ declared Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Sudan.

Since the conflict began, the UN estimates that 20,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded. More than 10 million people have also been displaced by the war, 2.4 million of whom have fled to neighbouring countries and other nations.