WASHINGTON

The UN children's agency warned Tuesday that escalating violence in Sudan is placing children at growing risk, citing a pattern of attacks on displacement camps and other civilian sites in conflict-hit regions.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said children across the Kordofan region are increasingly being killed, injured and displaced, echoing abuses long documented in Darfur, and urged stronger protection for civilians.

“Desperate families in Sudan seek shelter in displacement camps after fleeing hunger and violence. Their protection is an obligation,” Russell said in a statement.

According to Russell, UNICEF is seeing “the same disturbing patterns from Darfur” replicated across Kordofan, with children "killed, injured, displaced" and cut off from essential services needed to survive amid intensifying fighting.

The agency said its warning followed a reported drone strike on a displacement camp in West Kordofan on Monday that killed 15 children and wounded 10 others, underscoring the vulnerability of civilians seeking refuge.

"UNICEF calls on the Government of Sudan and all parties to the conflict to protect civilians, especially children, to stop attacks on civilian infrastructure, including displacement sites, and to ensure safe, sustained and unhindered humanitarian access to those in urgent need as humanitarian needs are deepening at rapid speed," it said.

Data from the UN human rights office indicate that at least 57 civilians, including 15 children, were reportedly killed between Feb. 15 and 16 across four states in Sudan.

On Feb. 15, an alleged Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) drone strike hit Al Safiya market in North Kordofan, reportedly killing 28 civilians and injuring 13 others. The following day, another alleged SAF drone struck a shelter for internally displaced people in West Kordofan, killing 26 civilians, including 15 children.

Separately, drones operated by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly struck two primary schools in South Kordofan and Al-Mazmoun Hospital in Sennar State, the office added.

Clashes have intensified in Sudan’s Darfur region between the SAF and the RSF, as well as in North, West and South Kordofan, where fighting has escalated since last October.

The RSF has been at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023, following the collapse of a transition toward civilian rule. On Oct. 26, RSF forces overran El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, after a 500-day siege, triggering mass displacement and leaving civilians trapped with little access to food.