Sudan: child malnutrition doubles in North Darfur
The amount of severely malnourished children in Sudan’s combat-ridden state of North Darfur has doubled since 2024, according to UNICEF via The New Arab plus agencies on July 11th.
Sudan has been immersed in a highly destructive civil war since April 2023, which erupted amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced a further 14 million.
The state of North Darfur, in particular, has been wrecked in the fighting, with its besieged capital city of El-Fasher, which hosts the last military garrison in Darfur, witnessing extreme and frequent violence as the RSF seeks to seize control of the entire region. In 2024, famine was declared in three large displacement camps that surround the city.
On July 11th, UNICEF released a statement which revealed that over 40,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition in North Darfur were admitted for treatment between January and May 2025 – double the amount documented in the same period in 2024.
UNICEF’s Sudan representative, Sheldon Yett, said that “children in Darfur are being starved by conflict and cut off from the very aid that could save them.”
Cases of severe acute malnutrition rose by 46 percent across all five Darfur states in the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
The battle for control over El-Fasher has intensified significantly over recent months. Hospitals have been damaged by shelling, aid convoys have been targeted, and humanitarian aid is almost entirely blocked from entering the city.
According to the UN, almost 40 percent of children under the age of five in El-Fasher suffer from acute malnutrition, with a further 11 percent suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
UNICEF has reported notable rises in malnutrition in other battlegrounds across in Sudan. Severe acute malnutrition rose by over 70 percent in neighbouring North Kordofan state, by 174 percent in the capital city of Khartoum, and almost seven-fold in the central state of Al-Jazira.
Khartoum and Al-Jazira were seized by the Sudanese military earlier in 2025, yet the nation remains de facto split. Concerns over the creation of a new state within Sudan by RSF leader Hemedti rose after he was appointed to head The Foundation Alliance – a national platform seeking to form a rival government to the military-backed administration.
The military controls the east, north and centre of Sudan, while the RSF holds almost all of Darfur and parts of the south.
The New Arab/ agencies/ Maghrebi.org
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