Submitted by:
Sudanese Alliance for Rights

Date:
15 April 2026

Marking three years since the outbreak of war in Sudan, the Sudanese Alliance for Rights hereby submits this communication to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child concerning the widespread, grave, and ongoing violations of children’s rights under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Three years on, Sudan’s children are not merely caught in conflict; they are being consumed by it.

Today, over 15 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, while millions more remain directly affected by violence, displacement, and deprivation.
At least 4,300 children have been killed or maimed, and over 8 million are out of school, their futures suspended indefinitely, clear violations of their rights to life, survival and development (Article 5 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child) and education (Article 11 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child).

But beyond the numbers lies a deeper, more disturbing reality.

Children in Sudan are increasingly being recruited and used in armed conflict, in direct violation of Article 22 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which obligates State Parties to ensure that no child takes direct part in hostilities. While exact figures remain difficult to verify, credible reports confirm that children as young as 14 are being recruited, trained, and sent to the frontlines, often with little or no training, effectively turned into instruments of war. Others are abducted, coerced, or manipulated into joining armed groups, used not only as fighters but also as porters, informants, and, in some cases,subjected to sexual violence, violations of their rights to protection from abuse and exploitation under Articles 16 and 27 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

In addition, children are increasingly being killed and maimed as a result of indiscriminate and repeated drone strikes, airstrikes, and shelling of civilian areas, including homes, markets, schools, and displacement sites, further deepening their exposure to death, injury, and lifelong trauma.

This is not incidental; it is one of the gravest violations of children’s rights in situations of armed conflict.

At the same time, Sudan’s children are being silently killed by hunger and disease.

Nearly 29 million people face acute food insecurity, with children among the most affected, many surviving on one meal a day or less.
An estimated million children are acutely malnourished, including hundreds of thousands facing life-threatening severe acute malnutrition undermining their right to survival and development under Article 5 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Disease is spreading rapidly in a country where the health system has largely collapsed, in violation of Article 14 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which guarantees the right to health and health services. Outbreaks of cholera, measles, malaria, and dengue fever are increasing, particularly in overcrowded displacement camps where sanitation systems have broken down.

In Darfur, the situation is especially dire. The region is facing a deadly convergence of famine, disease, and violence. The spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases has intensified amid a lack of clean water, collapsed health services, and ongoing attacks on medical facilities. Children, already weakened by hunger, are the most vulnerable, many dying from preventable and treatable conditions simply because care is no longer accessible.

This is a war being fought on children’s bodies through bullets, through hunger, through disease, and through neglect.

Healthcare systems have been decimated, with hospitals destroyed or rendered non-functional. Schools have been attacked, occupied, or turned into shelters. Protection systems have collapsed. Children are left exposed to violence, to exploitation, to trauma that will outlive this war. Millions of children have also been forcibly displaced, in violation of Article 23 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, often multiple times, and are now living in precarious and unsafe conditions.

Domestic remedies are no longer available in any meaningful sense. Institutions have collapsed. Access to justice is blocked. Accountability is absent.

The Sudanese Alliance of Rights also acknowledges the important steps already taken by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in responding to the situation in Sudan, including its 2023 public statement on the conflict and its earlier recommendations and engagements on the protection of children affected by armed conflict in Sudan. These interventions demonstrated timely recognition of the crisis’s severity and reaffirmed the Committee’s critical protective mandate under the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

However, given the scale, duration, and deepening nature of violations over the past three years, the Sudanese Alliance of Rights notes with concern that there has not yet been a comprehensive, standalone investigation or fact-finding report specifically addressing the current phase of the conflict and its impact on children, at least in the public domain. The absence of such a dedicated and systematic assessment underscores the urgent need for strengthened engagement to ensure that the realities faced by children in Sudan are fully documented, understood, and acted upon.

This communication is therefore not only a legal submission, but also an urgent moral appeal.

An appeal for a generation that has known nothing but war for three years.
An appeal for children who are being forced to fight, forced to flee, and forced to survive conditions no child should endure.

We call on the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child to act with urgency to recognise the scale of these violations, to initiate investigations, including fact-finding missions, and to use its full mandate to protect Sudanese children. We further urge the Committee to call for an immediate and sustained ceasefire, the end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and the guaranteeing of unhindered humanitarian access, alongside efforts to restore essential services and ensure accountability for violations.

Because if this continues, Sudan will not only lose lives, but it will lose its future.

Signed,
Sudanese Alliance for Rights