Source: World Vision
- Nearly 82,000 people have fled El Fasher and the surrounding areas in the past two weeks
- Sudan is now facing one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises, with 14 million people displaced.
Thousands of children fleeing conflict in El Fasher are arriving in East and South Darfur in Sudan at severe risk of dying from hunger and severe malnutrition.
Children and families have escaped the horrific conflict and siege, only to find refuge with little food, water, or life-saving aid. World Vision Sudan Director, Inos Mugabe, says we are witnessing a tragedy unfolding in real time.
“Children and their families are escaping a siege, and need immediate support. They look weary and severely malnourished. Their bodies are failing, and without urgent, large-scale intervention, we will lose them.
“We are receiving the most vulnerable people imaginable, but the resources we have are completely inadequate to sustain them. The world must understand the gravity of this situation and act before it is too late.”
The rapid influx has placed immense strain on aid organisations, like World Vision, which are scrambling to provide life-saving support. World Vision is currently providing new arrivals with clean drinking water, buckets, and plastic sheets for shelter, as well as psychosocial support to help children cope with trauma.
World Vision’s Child Protection co-ordinator in the region, Bahareldin El Haj, says children have witness unimaginable horrors.
“More than 5000 children have arrived here, stripped of their homes, safety, and basic needs. Beyond physical hunger and thirst, their psychological wounds run deep. They have witnessed unimaginable horrors.
“They are unaccompanied or separated from family members, which raises their risk of abuse and exploitation.”
Bahareldin says child protection programmes are currently overwhelmed by the scale of need.”
“We are holding the hands of children who are severely malnourished and dehydrated and conducting urgent psychosocial support sessions to give them a moment of normalcy and safety, but the needs are overwhelming.
“We are unable to provide the immediate support needed to save the children’s lives now. Children urgently need therapeutic feeding, emergency food supplies, clean drinking water, and dedicated psychosocial support.”
One of those who has escaped El Fasher is Aisha Mohammed who travelled with her children on a donkey until they reached Al Nakheel camp in East Darfur. The camp is already home to more than 22,500 internally displaced people.
“I left El Fasher on a donkey and couldn’t leave my children behind. It was hard. We had to leave behind several of our relatives. We need food and water so my children can survive.”
World Vision is calling on the international community to urgently address critical funding gaps and advocate for unrestricted humanitarian access to save the lives of children fleeing the crisis in El Fasher.
