Almost two months after the outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitaries, civilians bear the brunt of the conflict. News broke on Thursday that around 300 children were rescued from an orphanage in the Sudanese capital Khartoum after being trapped in the building while fighting raged outside, according to UNICEF. The evacuation came after 71 children have died from starvation and disease on the center premises since mid-April.
According to the spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, Ricardo Pires, the children from the Al-Mayqoma orphanage have been moved to a "safer place" in another part of the Northeast African nation.
The children had been trapped in the building for more than seven weeks with food and other supplies in short supply, encircled by fighting that has turned the capital and other urban areas into battlefields.
“[The children] had an incredibly difficult time in a conflict area (...) without access to adequate medical care, a particularly difficult situation for children with special needs,” said Jean-Christophe Sandoz, director of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sudan.
The orphanage already made headlines at the end of May, after 26 children died in two days because of the fighting.
According to a statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 13.6 million children need urgent humanitarian aid in Sudan due to the conflict. 458,000 minors have been forced to move internally and 618,000 have left the classroom. The same note, issued on Wednesday, warned that "children out of school are at greater risk of being recruited by armed groups and of suffering other protection problems."
After the latest failed attempt at a truce, which came to an end on Saturday night without being extended, hostilities have intensified in several areas of the capital, Khartoum, and in the state of North Darfur, where they have left at least 40 dead since the weekend.
The struggle for power in Sudan has triggered a major humanitarian crisis with more than 1.9 million internally displaced, and 477,000 people who have crossed into neighboring countries -Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Egypt-, according to the agency. of the UN for refugees, UNHCR.
Since April 15, the day the war began, the clashes have claimed at least 860 deaths and more than 5,500 injuries, according to the UN. Some figures to which we must add the indirect victims -such as the children of the Al-Mayqoma orphanage- who remain trapped inside their homes, unable to escape due to the scarcity of food and water, and who do not appear in official records.
Lack of access to supplies is one of the biggest concerns right now in Sudan - a country that was already dependent on foreign aid before the war broke out - as humanitarian groups have had to interrupt their work because of the violence.
In addition, various reports warn of widespread looting and rape of women and girls in Khartoum and western Darfur, the scene of some of the worst fighting in the conflict.
