Sudan and Southern Sudan

Fighting has cost at least 2 million lives, and forced 4 million people from their homes. Around 90% of the population in Sudan live below the poverty line. In Southern Sudan, one in four children dies before their fifth birthday.

Sudan has known only 11 years of peace since it gained independence in 1956.

There's just one trained doctor for every 100,000 people. And more than half of all children in Sudan don't go to school.

In Darfur, in the west, at least two million people have been displaced by fighting between militias and rebel forces. Nearly a quarter of a million people have fled and are living in refugee camps along the border with Chad.

The people of Darfur have been terrorised by the fighting. They've had their homes looted and burned, and seen family members killed. Many women and young girls have been raped and abducted.

Children have experienced trauma, separation from their families, displacement, forced recruitment, physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition, and sometimes starvation. Despite a partial peace agreement in 2006, fighting is still ongoing.

  • We’re helping 55,146 children get a better education
  • We’re protecting 3,674 children from violence and exploitation
  • We’re helping 124,862 children stay free from hunger through rebuilding family livelihoods
  • We’re saving children’s lives by supplying clean water

Save the Children in Sudan and Southern Sudan

Following the recent peace agreement, we split our operations into two programmes: one for Southern Sudan and one for northern (including western and eastern) Sudan.

Southern Sudan gained the right to govern itself in 2005. It is estimated that 2 million people died and 4 million were displaced during the 20-year war with the north. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement remains fragile. Tensions over north /south border demarcation are rife. A referendum to decide the south’s long-term status will be held in 2011.

We’re combining the programmes of Save the Children USA and Sweden, our partners in the International Save the Children Alliance. As of October 2009, we will operate as a unified presence in Southern Sudan, enabling us to achieve even greater changes in children’s lives.

We’re protecting children from violence and abuse

During the war, many children became separated from their families or became orphaned, and communities were exposed to violence and abuse.

We’re protecting 3,764 children through our work to strengthen communities’ capacity to look after their children, and to reunite children with their families.

We help to run 16 children’s clubs across Southern Sudan and last year we also built children’s centres in Bahr el Ghazal, Jonglei and Unity states, where children can play safely and meet other children

We’ve developed an inter-agency child protection database which we use to track separated and demobilised children and help reunite them with their families.

We’re providing good quality primary education

Less than 25% of an estimated 2.2 million primary school-aged children are enrolled in school. Three times more boys than girls attend school, and drop-out rates for girls are the highest in the world.

Through our Rewrite the Future programme, we’re providing good quality education for 55,146 children in the Jonglei and Bahr el Ghazal regions. We’re helping children go to primary school, and helping those who’ve missed out on years of schooling catch up through our accelerated learning programme (ALP) classes.

We’ve built four new primary schools in the last year and distributed more than 22,000 textbooks for primary school children and ALP students in 21 schools. In addition, we’ve helped to train 527 teachers on school management and administration, child protection and gender issues.

We’re providing clean water

We’re providing clean water

We’re providing clean water and improving sanitation and people’s basic hygiene practices. Access to clean water has now increased by more than 50% among the 1,200 households within our project areas in Western Bahr el Ghazal and Jonglei states. We’re helping people drill 9 new boreholes in Aweil County, making a total of 15, benefiting thousands of families.

We’re also providing safe water points in primary schools.

Find out more

Sudan and Southern Sudan related articles

Thursday 7 January 2010 World needs to act now to prevent Sudan war
Major conflict could return to Southern Sudan unless there is urgent international action to save the peace agreement that ended one of Africa’s longest and deadliest wars
Thursday 5 March 2009 Save the Children UK's statement on being asked to suspend operations in Sudan
Ken Caldwell, Save the Children UK’s director of international operations, made a statement on being asked to suspend Save the Children UK operations in Sudan.
Thursday 5 March 2009 Save the Children UK's statement on being asked to suspend operations in Sudan
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