ALBAWABA - The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) released a statement warning that almost 3 million children across Al Jazirah State in Sudan are at risk as violence escalates.
The escalation in fighting in Sudan’s Al Jazirah state has reportedly forced at least 150,000 children from their homes in less than a week, UNICEF warned today. An estimated 5.9 million people live in Al Jazirah State, with approximately half of the population being children.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: "Tens of thousands of vulnerable children in Al Jazirah state have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety as fighting erupts into areas that were previously considered relatively safe,".
"This new wave of violence could leave children and families trapped between fighting lines or caught in the crossfire, with fatal consequences. With reports of renewed fighting elsewhere in the country, millions of children in Sudan are once again at grave risk" Russell added.
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Wednesday that it has temporarily suspended assistance in some parts of Al Jazirah State in Sudan as conflict has spread south and east of the capital, Khartoum.
WFP described the decision taken on safety grounds as a "major setback to humanitarian efforts in the country’s breadbasket, where staff had been regularly providing aid to over 800,000 people, including many who had escaped the fighting in Khartoum".
Intensified battles across the Wadi Madani area between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces outside the central city center, opened a new front in the 8-month raging war.
According to the United Nations, at least 14,000 people have fled the Wadi Madani area so far, and a few thousand have already reached other cities. Half a million people had sought refuge in Gezira, mainly from Khartoum.
There are reports of looting and damaging banks and the main markets in Wadi Madani by armed groups and citizens. The price of transportation has gone up alongside the prices of fuel reserves run low by the day.
"So many people have run away. We who remained are trapped inside our houses" Mohamed Babikir, a physician in Madani told the Guardian. There have been reports of heavy artillery and fighter jets over the city.
