By Biodun Busari
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed no fewer than nine children have been killed and 50 others injured in Sudan’s war between the army and the paramilitary, Rapid Special Forces (RSF).
UNICEF said some children are kept in schools and care centres for protection as hospitals have been forced to evacuate children as shelling has moved closer on the sixth day of the war that began on Saturday.
“The fighting has disrupted critical, life-saving care for an estimated 50,000 severely acutely malnourished children. These vulnerable children need ongoing, round-the-clock care, which is being put at risk by the escalating violence,” UNICEF said in a statement.
The UN humanitarian agency added, “Children will continue to pay the price” if the violence is not stopped, BBC reported.
More than $40m (£32m) of vaccines and insulin are at risk of spoiling due to unprecedented power cuts in the ongoing Sudan crisis, UNICEF added.
As things stand, more than 270 people have died in the violence since Saturday, according to a statement from the US embassy in Khartoum.
