Sudanese women and children fleeing the al-Jazira state stand next to their belongings near the eastern city of Gedaref on November 2, 2024. The voices of Sudanese children are being violently snuffed out. They will have no future if the world continues to ignore their cries for help, says the writer. Picture: AFP
Kim Heller
SANTA Claus does not exist. He is simply a joyful play of imagination that has enchanted children through the ages. A jolly figure, who travels across international skies and seas, delivering gifts to children across the globe. In a world increasingly bloodied by warfare and other man-made catastrophes, Christmas is often a time of lightness and joy. But there will be no cherry-red sleighs or crimson-wrapped gifts for the children of Sudan who are caught in the grotesque blood-red of war.
In a recent post in Modern Diplomacy, poet and writer, Abigal George, wrote, “While children and the vulnerable die in Sudan, I write. I write to reach them. I write to reach their arms and legs like branches, the nobility in their eyes, the grace in their limbs but all I see is depleted energies, red, bloodstained clothing, and fingernails.”
The United Nations (UN) has described Sudan as the “worst humanitarian crisis for children in the world.” An estimated 15 million children have been displaced in the extremely violent and relentless fifteen-month conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, (ACLED), reported that throughout the conflict, there have been an average of sixteen attacks a day. With many forced to live in poorly equipped, food-scarce and overcrowded temporary settlements, the children of Sudan are often just a step away from ever-lurking danger.
Torn from their families, desperately vulnerable and starving children are being sexually and economically abused, trafficked, and thrust into militia and mercenary-related activity. The latest report from the UN fact-finding mission, which was released in October 2024, details the abhorrent crimes against children in Sudan. This includes abduction, detention, torture, and lack of access to education, health, and much-needed humanitarian aid.
The United Nation’s special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Siobhán Mullally, has claimed that unaccompanied children and children from poor families are being targeted by RSF in the capital and beyond. Mullally said, “The deteriorating humanitarian situation and lack of access to food and other basic services make children, especially unaccompanied and separated children on the streets, easy targets for recruitment by armed groups.”
There is growing evidence that both the SAF and the RSF are guilty of violating children's rights. The UN report provides a dossier of conflict-related sexual violence including the sexual slavery of children, forced marriages and the recruitment of young boys to fight in the hostilities. The report documents how the SAF and RSF have injured and killed children and attacked schools and hospitals. Further to this, the RSF has been accused of sexual violence against children and of using young children and teenagers in their military operations. All of this is a clear violation of local and international law as well as human rights.
Sudan has become a place where angels fear to tread. No body of legislation, Continental or international body has succeeded in providing the necessary protection to the children of Sudan. Although the African Union (AU) has repeatedly appealed for the opening up of safe passageways for humanitarian aid, human rights organisations and NPOs still battle to reach the most traumatised areas and people.
Earlier this year, the UN warned that trafficking for sexual exploitation and recruitment of children by the militia is on the rise. With an estimated 18 million Sudanese children robbed of access to education due to the devastating cycle of displacement and destruction, and many being recruited or forced into being child soldiers, one has to wonder what Sudan’s future holds. What will become of the young girls raped, and of the unwanted infants born out of this sexual violence? What is the fate and future of Sudan if its youth are being turned into merciless soldiers where violence is the only language they know?
What type of fathers will these child soldiers become? While attempts to rehabilitate child soldiers by the African Union, and human rights organisations, are admirable, they are not widespread, systemic, or sustainable.
The voices of Sudanese children are being violently snuffed out. They will have no future if the world continues to ignore their cries for help. This year, UNICEF chose "Listen to the Future, as its theme for World Children's Day, which was marked on 20 November 2024.
Sadly, the world is not listening to the cries of the children in Sudan. The world is ominously silent. This is an awful indictment on all leaders, but especially those in the Continent. The African Union needs to step up. So must every leader in Africa. The fate and future of the children of Sudan are intrinsically linked to the fate and future of every single child in Africa.
There is no magic sleigh for the children of Sudan, there is little cause to celebrate Christmas. There will be no gifts. Little joy. At the very least the children of Sudan should be gifted with a clarion call by African figures to end the villainous violence and hold the perpetrators of such horrors to account. This gift of peace and protection is what the children of Sudan deserve. In the words of the great legendary author Carol Lewis, “Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage."
But for now, there is no saviour in sight. It looks set to be yet another gruesome and grim Christmas in Sudan. As the festive season beckons, there is no cheer in the air, nor will there be sightings of the magical, yet fictional traveller called Santa Claus.
There will be troops of child soldiers with oversized weapons, and there will be young girls carrying wounds that will never heal, headed towards a destination that they do not know or choose.
The Lost Children of Sudan will be one of the gravest tragedies of our time.
* Kim Heller is a political analyst and author of No White Lies: Black Politics and White Power in South Africa.
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The African.