Nearly 13 million people have been displaced, according to UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) figures from April 2025. That is almost a third of the population in Sudan.
But the displacement is believed to be greater and far more harrowing than officially-recorded statistics suggest.
“It is not something which is particularly widely reported yet,” King says. “We hear about rivers of blood. You can see blood from space. But there is a human story of the people who are lost in the bush around these centres of conflict, and children in particular trying to find safety in a place where there isn’t really anywhere to go.”
Five million children have been forced to flee their homes, an average of one child every 10 seconds, according to Save the Children. Just under half of displaced children are under the age of five.
“I was in Gaza this time last year. There you see the density of the conflict in such a confined space, which is a unique and shocking thing. What’s unique about what I’ve seen in Darfur is the brutality of the conflict, and particularly how it affects children,” King says.
The RSF seized the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in October 2025. It was a massacre in which tens of thousands of people were murdered, at least, according to briefings given to British MPs. But the reality is likely far worse, with 150,000 residents unaccounted for and the majority believed never to have left the city.
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Christopher Lockyear, secretary general of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, recently told the Big Issue that it appears “a large part of civilians who were still alive were killed or died or have been detained or trapped”.
“It’s horrific. We haven’t been able to go and respond yet but we have really strong fears about what’s happened there,” Lockyear said.
King says War Child has seen people moving from El Fasher into Tawila, in North Darfur, which has become the nearest camp for internally-displaced people.
He has spent most of his time in Nyala in South Darfur, which he describes as “the staging grounds for the RSF who are repositioned to increase their campaign in South Kordofan”. It is a heavily militarised environment.
“At the majority of checkpoints, of which there are hundreds, most of them are staffed by armed children. I have also witnessed groups of children being corralled and marched off with bags packed to what I’m informed are training camps,” says King.
“We don’t have access to these camps to understand exactly how they work and where these children are going from there. But what’s evident is that child soldiers is a huge issue.”
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King says he saw one group of around 20 children, who he believes were aged between 13 and 15, being marched off by a group of men dressed in combat fatigues. He has also seen children in the back of trucks with adult soldiers.
Children have told King they are afraid of being kidnapped or abducted and made to join armed groups. Others have said they do not want to go to school because they are worried they are going to get raped.
There have been drone strikes on civilian populations, killing children. In December, an RSF drone attack hit a kindergarten in the town of Kologi in South Kordofan, killing 50 people, including 33 children.
Four in five children are out of school in Sudan – around 14 million, according to Unicef.
But despite the horrors which are directly affecting children, and both sides being accused of war crimes, King argues that the crisis is going “largely ignored” by the world.
How does this make him feel as a humanitarian worker? “There’s the obvious frustration. There’s anger. You feel like you’re in the problem on your own.
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“You don’t see a coherent or determined approach from member states to hold warring parties to account and demand access, or accountability for crimes being committed and prevention of crimes to come – because this is, for sure, not the end.”
King adds: “I would like to see grave violations against children having consequences, and we just don’t see it. We don’t see it across any of the conflicts which have been happening for at least the last two years.”
The UK government has committed more than £120 million in funding to Sudan this year. It recently announced a further £5m of urgent funding following the massacre in El Fasher.
Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said: “In Sudan right now, there is just despair. And just as the combination of leadership and international cooperation has made progress on Gaza, it is currently failing to deal with the humanitarian crisis and the devastating conflict in Sudan.
“For too long, this terrible conflict has been neglected, while suffering has simply increased.”
But King fears it is not nearly enough amid the atrocities on children, particularly as global aid cuts have heightened pressures on humanitarian workers.
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It is believed that more than 30 million people, almost two thirds of Sudan’s population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. More than half are believed to be children.
Almost 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, are facing acute hunger, with 637,000 of these classified as being on the brink of famine.
“We’re just humanitarian workers,” says King. “There’s a limit to what we can demand. We have no leverage, essentially. You feel very alone and quite powerless, and the response itself feels quite surface level. You might help one child one day, but we’re talking about a conflict where there are 15 million children in need.”
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