Children in Sudan
An overview of the situation of children in Sudan
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Children in Sudan
Sudan is the third largest country in Africa, with a population of over 41 million. Of those, more than half (approximately 21 million) are children, of which 6.5 million are children under the age of five.
For 70 years, since 1952, UNICEF has championed the promotion and protection of child rights in Sudan, registering enormous results and changing lives especially for the most vulnerable children.
Through the systems strengthening approach, UNICEF is working with partners to ensure more children are reached with lifesaving health services including immunization; more children are enrolling and attending school and fewer children and young people affected by violence and abuse.
With increased challenges – from COVID-19 to climate change and political instability – UNICEF strives to reach at-risk children with lifesaving assistance to help them survive and thrive.
Despite the progress made for children over the years, several children in Sudan remains one of the harshest places in the world to be a child.
- A staggering 19 million school-aged children risk losing out on their education, with grave implications for their future prospects, for Sudan, and beyond. .
- Sudan has one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children in the world. Rates of severe acute malnutrition in children under five are already exceptionally high, with nearly 730,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
- 78,000 children under 5 years of age are dying every year from preventable causes, such as malaria.
- Approximately 23 million children in Sudan are exposed to violence, abuse and exploitation.
- 31 per cent of girls aged 0-14 years have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
- 38 per cent of girls aged 15-18 years are married before the age of 18.
- Children living and working in the street and migrant children face serious challenges in accessing basic services and rights.
- In addition, 11.5 million people, almost one third of the population, are in need of urgent water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions. Out of 189 localities in Sudan, 151 face water scarcity that is at the crisis to critical level, and paradoxically these localities are also highly susceptible to natural hazards, especially flooding. Such WASH-related diseases like diarrhea and cholera remain a high risk due to lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.
- Sudan continues to face extremely complex humanitarian crises, which have left 15.6 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including more than 8.5 million children.
- More than 4 million children have been forcibly displaced internally ad across borders, making it the world’s largest internal displacement crisis for children.
- Over 13 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance.
- Recurrent disease outbreaks, including measles and malaria, continue to affect large numbers of children, and the routine immunization rate has rapidly fallen with one in six children completely unprotected. Between 2019 and 2021, twice as many children had not received a single dose of life-saving vaccine, putting millions of children’s lives at risk.
- More than 200 locations in Sudan experience recurrent conflicts and violence. Conflict and insecurity combined with the economic crisis are making children more vulnerable due to negative coping mechanisms that include child marriage, school dropout, reduced food intake and increased forced recruitment and association with armed groups.
The consequences for children living in this context are dire: 1 out of 18 children will not reach their fifth birthday. Of those that do, many will have had their future irreversibly compromised through the impacts of poor nutrition, disease, lack of access to adequate water and sanitation, poor protection mechanisms, and a lack of future access to learning. Nearly 50 per cent of under five deaths in Sudan are newborn deaths, the majority of which are due to preventable causes. These impacts fall hardest on girls.
