Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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December 9, 2025 Humanitarian aid
Naed was only 16 years old when armed men attacked her village. The militants shot indiscriminately at local residents, including her grandfather and uncle. Girls and young women were raped or kidnapped.
"Naed managed to escape, but what she had to endure was horrific," UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Tuesday, describing her story.
Sudan is facing a severe humanitarian crisis since conflict broke out in 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Intervention Forces (RSF), which now controls the devastated North Darfur capital of El Fasher after more than 500 days of siege.
Catherine Russell, who recently visited Sudan, called for urgent action to protect children and civilians in general. An estimated 10 million people, half of them children, have been displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict.
"Ongoing Violence"
During a visit to the east of the country, Russell met with women and adolescents receiving psychosocial support and skills training at a UNICEF-supported center. While this center provides assistance to many, such services are extremely limited in the states of Darfur and Kordofan due to extreme security instability.
"Children in Sudan live in conditions of relentless violence, hunger, and fear," Russell emphasized. "Women and girls bear the brunt of the crisis, including horrific levels of sexual violence."
Speaking to journalists via video link from Sudan on Tuesday, Fabrizia Falcione, a representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), described her meetings with those who managed to escape El Fasher. Among them was a 17-year-old girl with a six-month-old baby born as a result of rape.
None of the women she spoke to had received any prenatal care.
"They told me they preferred not to go to the hospital so as not to risk their lives on the way," Falcione said.
"We need normal toilets and bread."
When Falcione asked the displaced women what they needed most, they responded: proper toilets and bread. Earning a living came third on the list of priorities.
"There are no toilets near their tents. There's no light in the camp at night either," Falcione said. "And these are pregnant women without male companions."
Fighting in and around El Fasher has forced more than 106,000 people to flee their homes. Temporary refugee centers are overcrowded, and entire neighborhoods have been transformed into vast informal settlements.
UNFPA is providing maternal support and psychosocial services for survivors of gender-based violence, while UNICEF is identifying and registering unaccompanied children and restoring access to safe water.
Russell said that wherever she went during her visit to Sudan, children told her the same thing: "All we want is peace." "The international community must do more to fulfill that desire," she concluded.
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