Aid net misses 1.25 million kids
2005-12-21 10:33
Khartoum - More than one million children do not have access to relief in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur, said the United Nations Children's Fund in a report released on Tuesday.
"Every day more than three million children are affected by the ongoing conflict in Darfur. They are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition, illness and violence," a Unicef statement said.
Unicef explained that an estimated 1.75 million displaced children living in camps had access to basic services and that the malnutrition rate had dropped to 11.9% from 21.8% in 2004.
"However an estimated 1.25 million children remain who cannot be reached because of insecurity, and their situation remains largely unknown," the statement said.
Unicef said families living outside the camps were suffering from a fast-declining economy and that continued insecurity had restricted movement, inducing the ghettoisation of local communities.
In the statement, Unicef representative in Sudan Ted Chaiban called for all parties involved in peace talks in Abuja to find a solution to the almost three-year-old conflict in Darfur.
"Darfur's children deserve the same dividends of peace which children affected by Sudan's North-South conflict are beginning to see," he said, in reference to a north-south peace deal signed in January.
The Sudanese government and the main rebel groups in Darfur have taken part in peace negotiations sponsored by the African Union in Abuja, but the talks have repeatedly collapsed.
As many as 300 000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced since the conflict erupted in February 2003.