Hundreds of children separated from families while fleeing violence in Sudan

CAIRO, Nov 28 (Arab News): Hundreds of children have arrived in a refugee camp without their families as thousands of people fled violence in the Sudanese city of el-Fasher in the past month, with more children disconnected from their families arriving every day, officials said.

The UN said more than 100,000 people fled el-Fasher in western Darfur beginning in late October when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took back el-Fasher from the Sudanese army. UNICEF recorded the arrival of 354 children without immediate family members in a refugee camp in Tawila, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of el-Fasher, between Oct. 26 and Nov. 22. Their parents disappeared or were detained or killed along the way, officials said.

UNICEF, the UN's child protection agency, said Friday that 84 children were reunited over the past month with their families, mostly in Tawila where many international aid organizations are providing assistance to people impacted by the fighting in el-Fasher, the North Darfur capital seized by the RSF last month.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said at least 400 children have arrived to Tawila without their parents. Some reached the camp with the help of extended relatives, neighbors and strangers who didn't want to leave them alone in the desert or el-Fasher, NRC advocacy manager Mathilde Vu said Thursday.

"Many children arrived with clear signs of hunger, extremely skinny. They're so bony, dehydrated," she said, adding that some show psychological distress including becoming restless, mute or withdrawn, crying constantly, describing nightmares or getting into fights.

The latest mass displacement began when the RSF left hundreds dead in el-Fasher, which was the Sudanese army's last stronghold. The war between the RSF and the military began in 2023, when tensions erupted between the two former allies that were meant to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 uprising.