WeeklySA_AdminHORROR: In the last seven months of fighting in Sudan, reported cases of children killed and injured in Darfur spiked 450 per cent when compared to all of 2022
By Ahmed Elfatih Mohamdeen
NEW YORK – The escalating humanitarian crisis in Sudan over the last seven months has reached a grim milestone in Darfur, where at least five million children are facing extreme deprivation of their rights and protection risks due to ongoing conflict.
This is according to the latest statement released by the United Nations’ International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) on the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
Since the war broke out on April 15, over 3 130 allegations of severe child rights violations have been reported in the country, with the Darfur region bearing at least half of the cases. This is just the tip of the iceberg, with severe under reporting due to communications blackouts and lack of access.
“Sudan – and Darfur in particular – has become a living hell for millions of children, with thousands being ethnically targeted, killed, injured, abused, and exploited. This must end,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director.
“Children continue to suffer new violence, while their parents and grandparents still bear the scars of previous cycles of violence. We cannot allow it to happen yet again. All parties to the conflict must uphold international law and protect children and civilians. Children need peace.”
The reported number of severe child right violations in Darfur represents a spike of 450 per cent when compared to the verified number in all of 2022. Of all killing and maiming incidents reported across Sudan, 51 per cent involve children in Darfur. In addition, 48 per cent of the total reported sexual violence cases in Sudan occur in Darfur. UNICEF continues to receive disturbing reports of child recruitment and use.
In addition to multiple levels of violence, over 1.2 million children under five in the Darfur states are suffering from acute malnutrition, with 218 000 of them facing severe acute malnutrition, its most deadly form. Without urgent treatment and life-saving services, they are at high risk of death.
The recent upsurge in fighting has also led to significant displacement in the region, with 1.7 million new internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Darfur, nearly 40% of the total caseload in the country. Nearly half of them are children. Displaced children face heightened risks for abuse, violence, exploitation, and separation from their caregivers.
Vital services in Darfur, including health care and protection, have crumbled due to hindered access, looting, and lack of financial resources, further exacerbated by attacks on frontline workers. Nurses, teachers, doctors, and social workers have not been paid in months, and critical infrastructure, such as water and sanitation systems and hospitals, have been damaged or depleted.
Amidst the ceaseless conflict, extending far beyond the immediate devastation and loss of life, a generation of children in Darfur is at risk of losing out on their right to education, with almost all the region’s 4 000 formal schools closed.
UNICEF, in collaboration with partners, has been delivering lifesaving supplies to Darfur, supporting frontline workers, and maintaining basic infrastructure to provide critical health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene, learning, and protection services for 2.2 million children and family members.
However, more needs to be done, and UNICEF calls upon the international community to accelerate funding for essential lifesaving and resilience services and to redouble advocacy support for unhindered access.
An immediate humanitarian ceasefire is needed. UNICEF reiterates its call for all parties involved in the conflict to respect international humanitarian and human rights laws, halt the grave violations of children’s rights, unfettered access and removal of bureaucratic impediments which limit the speed and scale required to reach the millions of vulnerable children and families across Sudan.
UNICEF has called for the redoubled commitment by the international community and all parties in the conflict to address the plight of millions of children and families who are living through a relentless nightmare day after day. Children continue to pay the highest price for a crisis not of their making. Increasingly with their own lives.
Unicef said in a statement: “Sudan is now the largest child displacement crisis in the world, with a recorded 3 million children fleeing widespread violence in search of safety, food, shelter and health care—most within Sudan—while hundreds of thousands are sheltering in sprawling make-shift camps in neighbouring countries.
Comment
SHAME ON THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
The decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) to offer 250 US dollars to each of the women and girls who were raped and sexually exploited in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the Ebola pandemic between 2018 and 2020, is shameful and should be viewed as a sadistic pleasure in tormenting and inflicting more pain on the victims.
Some of the women were impregnated by WHO staffers who were deployed in that country to help stop the spreading of the pandemic. According to an internal WHO report from Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, leader of WHO’s efforts to prevent sexual abuse, one of the victims told her during a trip to the DRC, that she gave birth to a baby with a malformation that required special treatment.
The victims, who reluctantly accepted the 250 dollars, have complained that the amount – which would not remove the scars suffered at the hands of these sex pests – was insufficient. The amount, according to the WHO documents, covers typical living expenses for less than four months in a country where many people survive on less than 2,15 dollars a day.
To add more insult to this degrading offer, Gamhewage is quoted as saying there was nothing the WHO could do to make up for the sexual abuses adding that WHO would ask the victims directly what further support they needed. Really ? The WHO, she added, has helped defray medical costs for 17 children born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse. This is proof enough of how cheap a Black woman’s life is in the eyes of the very organization that purports to serve vulnerable people with dignity.
While the women and girls, including a 13 -year-old – are battling to overcome the trauma of being sexually abused, the WHO is still struggling to bring the culprits to book – almost six years after the commitment of the crimes. All they claim is that only five staffers had been dismissed for sexual misconduct since 2021. One of the women victims who was sexually exploited and impregnated by a WHO doctor, was offered a deal in which the perpetrator agreed to get her a plot and pay her 100 dollars a month until the baby was born. What happens after the baby was born seems to be none of his business.
The offer granted as compensation to these women and children who underwent such a traumatic experience, is callous and should be rejected with the contempt it deserves especially coming from a United Nations health agency whose vision it is to, amongst others, ‘’ attain the highest possible level of health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable.’’
The WHO should know better that the stigma of being raped, sexually abused and impregnated will never be erased through payment of any amount. It is an everlasting scar to any woman – Black or White.
The only sin these victims committed was to seek employment from wrong people, at a wrong place and at a wrong time. All that they are waiting for now is not financial compensation. It is justice.
