Darfur’s children are not just casualties; they are part of the mechanism of war

Amnesty researcher Janine Morna’s account points to more than isolated wartime abuse in North Darfur. She says children have been recruited, girls have faced sexual violence, and the siege has cut children off from food and schooling.

That matters because the pattern could indicate a wider campaign rather than disconnected incidents. If so, children are not just collateral victims; they are being pulled into the conflict itself. That is a serious allegation, but it should be stated carefully. Amnesty’s reporting supports attributed claims about what researchers say they documented; it does not by itself prove a single command chain ordered every abuse.

A plausible alternative remains: some harms may reflect fragmentation, opportunism and breakdowns in discipline rather than one deliberate policy. But the convergence of recruitment, sexual violence and siege deprivation is hard to dismiss as random spillover.

Source: https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/amnesty-researcher-sudans-children-face-recruitment-sexual-violence-and-lasting-trauma