Port Sudan, Sudan
Monday, September 15, 2025
More than three-quarters of school-age children and adolescents in war-torn Sudan are currently out of school, constituting one of the world’s worst education crises, Save the Children said Thursday.
A new study by the NGO estimates that 13 million minors are out of school, out of a total of 17 million of school age.
This figure includes approximately seven million students enrolled in schools but who do not have access to education due to conflict or displacement, and another six million who are not enrolled at all, according to the study.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions, and destroyed the country’s infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.
“If the conflict continues, millions of these children will not be able to return to school, exposing them to immediate and long-term dangers, including displacement, recruitment into armed groups, and sexual violence,” said Mohamed Abdiladif, director of Save the Children in Sudan.
The UN fact-finding mission on Sudan reported this week on forced marriages of girls as young as 12, “sometimes under threat of death to their families.”
Children and adolescents who have dropped out of school have now lost more than two years of schooling due to violence, according to Save the Children.
Even before the current conflict began, nearly seven million were already out of school due to poverty and instability, the NGO said.
It said that just under half of the country’s schools have reopened in recent months, allowing around four million children to resume their education.
Relative calm has returned to parts of central Sudan, including the capital Khartoum, after the army regained control of the region earlier this year.
According to the United Nations migration agency, around two million people have returned home since last November across Sudan. Nearly half of them have resettled in the central state of al-Jazira, and some 600,000 in Khartoum.
According to the UN, Sudan is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Nearly 10 million people have been forcibly displaced within the country, and four million have fled abroad.
Humaniterre with AFP
