UNICEF has warned that drones and drought are closing in on Sudan's children "from both sides", in what it calls an assault unlike anything seen before in the country's history.

The warning was delivered in Geneva on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, by UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, after a recent visit to Sudan. He said armed drones struck a power station in Sudan every day in the last week of October, with up to 15 hit during the month.

Power strikes cut water and healthcare

Elder explained that the two threats are lethal together because, in Sudan, power is water. When a power station is hit, water pumps and water treatment stop, families are forced onto expensive and unsafe alternatives, and disease spreads. UNICEF said pockets of cholera are again appearing in some of the hardest-to-reach communities, including among internally displaced families.

Cold storage for vaccines and medicines is also threatened, and farmers lose irrigation because the pumps run on electricity, while fuel shortages are crippling. Harvests suffer, prices keep rising and food slips further out of reach.

"In the last week of October, not a single day passed without an armed drone striking a power station in Sudan," Elder said. He added that the attacks, spreading geographically and coming in quick succession, represent a serious escalation in attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Harvest window has closed

At the same time, drought linked to the El Niño weather pattern has already damaged Sudan's food supply. UNICEF said the planting window for the 2026-27 cereal harvest has largely closed, and even if late rains arrive, they cannot undo the damage done.

An estimated 825,000 children under five in Sudan are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, the type of malnutrition that kills. UNICEF said two in three child casualties in Sudan this year were caused by drones, bringing the war to places that were once safe.

"People here talk about three things: safety, education and water. Armed drones are taking all three," Elder said.

Children caught in the war

Elder described meeting children in camps whose arms and hands had been blown off in the war, including a teenager named Burie who lost both hands to an explosive and now lives in a tent, learning online in the mornings and picking grass for animals in the afternoons.

Despite the scale of the crisis, UNICEF said its work with partners has treated hundreds of thousands of children for the deadliest form of malnutrition, provided healthcare to more than 2.5 million people, vaccinated millions of children and repaired and solarised water systems serving close to 8 million people.

Funding covers only a third of the need

UNICEF's response in Sudan is only one-third funded, the agency said, and it called for three things: an end to violence against children and attacks on power stations, water systems and civilian infrastructure; safe access across conflict lines and an end to the flow of weapons killing and injuring children; and urgent, sustained and flexible funding for safe water, malnutrition treatment, healthcare, education and protection.

"For three and a half years, the suffering of Sudan's children has been met with silence," Elder said. "When the power goes, the water pumps stop. When the rains fail, the food runs out. Sudan's children are now facing both at once."

Sudan's war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023. The United Nations says 33.7 million people, including 17.3 million children, need humanitarian assistance in Sudan in 2026.