CGTN Europe spoke to Eva Hinds, Chief of Advocacy and Communication at the UNICEF Sudan Country Office
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00:00Well, Eva Hines is the head of communication for UNICEF in Sudan.
00:05Eva, thanks very much for joining us.
00:06How many children are impacted by this civil war?
00:11There are 15 million children in Sudan that are impacted by this war,
00:15so it's a large number of children whose lives are in a very precarious state.
00:20There are millions of children who have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict started.
00:24Many have been forced to run and leave everything behind,
00:28not only once, twice, but three times, and this makes them very vulnerable.
00:32And many of these children are stuck in camps or internally displaced at the moment.
00:38That means they're in a place where there's very limited or no services available.
00:42That means very limited amounts of safe and clean water, barely no health care,
00:47limited amounts of food to eat, no chance to go to school, no chance to learn.
00:53And of course, when people are very crammed in these places,
00:56it also means that there are disease outbreaks, children get sick,
01:00and when they get sick, they're also susceptible for malnutrition.
01:04So the situation for the children is very difficult in many ways.
01:08And these are children in camps.
01:09And then we have, of course, children who are on the run and on the move,
01:13and they can be killed or injured in many places when they're so close to the conflict lines.
01:19What proportion of children in distress in Sudan do you think you're able to reach?
01:23Well, we are doing everything we can to reach as many children as possible
01:30across these different corners of the country.
01:33But it is difficult in many ways.
01:35And we estimate, for example, that last year, 60% of our aid deliveries were delayed for various reasons.
01:42There's a lot of red tape involved.
01:44It means a lot of bureaucratic approvals before the trucks can move.
01:48Sometimes it is fighting that holds the transport.
01:52Sometimes it is the vast geography that we are talking about.
01:56This is a very big country.
01:57Sometimes it is the weather that makes things so difficult.
02:01So even if we try very hard, it is very difficult to reach all the children in need.
02:06And also noting that the needs are this year alone, they're 20 times bigger than they were last year.
02:11So the needs are growing up.
02:12And we are racing against time to reach as many children as we can.
02:19Why do you think it's become a so-called forgotten war?
02:24Well, I think there hasn't been much attention on Sudan for a long time.
02:30Today it's delightful to see that so many different media outlets are talking about Sudan.
02:36But today we are marking two years.
02:40And perhaps that's why we are in front of the television screen today and we are reading about Sudan in the papers.
02:47But I think much more is needed so that we don't look away and we don't neglect these children when the needs are so big.
02:54All right.
02:55Thank you so much for chatting to us today.
02:56Eva Hines is the head of communication for UNICEF in Sudan, speaking to us there from Port Sudan.