The United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) has warned of an “unprecedented level” of child malnutrition in the war-torn region of North Darfur and called for immediate access to children and families trapped by the conflict.

The warning on Monday came amid intensified fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the paramilitary force continues to push east after seizing the city of el-Fasher in Darfur in late October.

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The conflict, which erupted in 2023, has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 12 million people and triggered famine in several parts of Sudan, a situation the UN has described as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

UNICEF, in its Monday statement, said some 53 percent of 500 children it screened in the Um Baru locality in North Darfur earlier this month were acutely malnourished.

It said one in six were also suffering from “severe acute malnutrition”, a life-threatening condition that it said could kill a child within weeks if left untreated.

“When severe acute malnutrition reaches this level, time becomes the most critical factor,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell in a statement.

“Children in Um Baru are fighting for their lives and need immediate help. Every day without safe and unhindered access increases the risk of children growing weaker and more death and suffering from causes that are entirely preventable,” she said.

According to UNICEF, many people currently living in the Um Baru area recently arrived from el-Fasher following the escalation of fighting in the city in late October. More than 100,000 people are estimated to have fled the famine-stricken city at the time.

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Many of those who fled reported mass atrocities, including killings, sexual assault and detentions, by RSF troops.

‘Crime scene’

On Friday, a UN humanitarian team was allowed access to the RSF-controlled city for the first time in two years. Denise Brown, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told the Reuters news agency that international aid staff who visited the city found it largely deserted.

She described el-Fasher as a “crime scene”.

“The town was not teeming with people. There were very few people that [they] were able to see,” she said. Those who the UN staff did see were living in empty buildings or rudimentary camps using basic plastic sheets.

Brown said the UN remains “very concerned” about people who were injured and “those who may be detained”.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

The paramilitary force, which has consolidated its control of Darfur following el-Fasher’s fall, is now pushing east into the Kordofan region. Al Jazeera’s Hassan Razzaq, reporting from Sudan, said the RSF continues to maintain sieges on the cities of Kadugli and Dilling, in South Kordofan, further worsening the hunger crisis there.

Expanded military operations have also added to people fleeing parts of the country, particularly North Darfur and North Kordofan, leaving behind “ghost towns”, Razzaq added.

UN officials, too, say fighting has intensified amid the dry season.

“Each passing day brings staggering levels of violence and destruction,” UN Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Khaled Khiari told the UN Security Council (UNSC) last week. “Civilians are enduring immense, unimaginable suffering, with no end in sight.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in the brutal civil war, while Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris presented a peace plan to the UNSC that called for the RSF to disarm.

The plan was rejected by the RSF as “wishful thinking”.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the Sudanese army, dismissed the possibility of a political solution that does not involve the disarmament of the RSF.

“We are not talking about a military solution … We said the military solution does not necessarily have to end with fighting; it can end with surrender,” al-Burhan told members of the Sudanese community in Turkiye. “The war will end after … arms are laid down,” he added.