Press releases

GENEVA/PORT SUDAN, 28 April 2028 – “Twenty years ago, Darfur shocked the world. An entire generation of children became victims or survivors of terrible atrocities.  Images of burned villages, death and mass displacement sparked global outrage and action. As always, children were at the sharpest end of the crisis.

DAKAR/NEW YORK, 26 April 2026 – “After a 14-day visit to the Central Sahel, I have witnessed firsthand a region rich in possibilities, yet continuously affected by insecurity, climate shocks, and socio-economic crises.

GENEVA/NEW YORK, 24 April 2026 – The Big Catch-Up (BCU), a historic multi-year, multi-country effort to address vaccination declines driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic, has reached an estimated 18.3 million children aged 1 to 5 across 36 countries with more than 100 million doses of life-saving vaccines, helping to narrow critical immunity gaps, announced Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), WHO, and UNICEF at the start of World Immunization Week.

LONDON, 24 April 2026 – Acute food insecurity and malnutrition levels remain alarmingly high and deeply entrenched, with crises increasingly concentrated in a core group of countries, according to the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2026, released today by an international alliance.  

NEW YORK, 17 April 2026 – “UNICEF is outraged by the killing of two drivers of trucks contracted by UNICEF to provide clean water to families in the Gaza Strip.

PORT SUDAN/GENEVA, 14 April 2026 - "After three devastating years of war, children in Sudan continue to bear the heaviest toll, with drones responsible for nearly 80 per cent of all reported child killings and injuries.

NEW YORK/PORT SUDAN, 14 April 2026 – As the conflict in Sudan hits the three-year mark, children continue to pay the heaviest price. Between January and March this year, at least 160 children have been reportedly killed and 85 maimed across the country – a 50 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2025.

NEW YORK, 9 April 2026 – “The intensification of hostilities in Lebanon continues to exact a devastating and inhumane toll on children. In just minutes yesterday, as news of a regional ceasefire agreement briefly ignited hope across the country, deadly Israeli airstrikes struck across Lebanon, reportedly killing 33 children and injuring 153.

TEHRAN, 8 April 2026 - UNICEF welcomes the ceasefire as a critical step that offers hope to children and families in Iran who have endured immense suffering. Even as the skies fall silent and the strikes cease, the impact of violence on children will have long-lasting consequences and must not be overlooked.

NEW YORK, 7 April 2026 – “Children in Iran and across the region are exposed to physical harm and psychological distress, alongside attacks and rising threats to the essential infrastructure upon which their survival depends.

NEW YORK, 30 March 2026 – More than one month into the military escalation in the Middle East, conflict continues to exact a devastating toll on children across the region. More than 340 children have reportedly been killed and thousands injured.

BEIRUT, 27 March 2026 – “In just three weeks, more than 370,000 children have been forced out of their homes in Lebanon, an average of at least 19,000 girls and boys displaced every single day. To grasp the scale, this is the equivalent of hundreds of school buses filled with children fleeing for their lives every 24 hours.

Dr Philip Goodwin, Chief Executive Officer of The UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK) said:  “It’s critical to remember that behind today’s figures are real children and families going without essentials, falling behind their peers, and making impossible choices just to get by."

NEW YORK, 23 March 2026 – “Twenty-three days into the escalating conflict in the Middle East, children across the region are paying a devastating price. A further descent into a wider or protracted conflict would be catastrophic for millions more. 

“The UK Government’s decision to cut the aid budget was always going to result in a deadly reality for some of the world’s most vulnerable children. UNICEF UK has repeatedly called for the world’s children to be protected from these cuts and the consequences of these decisions. 

As we await the announcement of how the hugely reduced aid budget will be allocated, our message is clear – the world’s children must be protected from these cuts.  

GENEVA/NEW YORK, 18 March 2026 – An estimated 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2024, including 2.3 million newborns, according to new estimates released today. Most of these deaths are preventable with proven, low-cost interventions and access to quality health care.

AMMAN, 17 March 2026 – “Violence has again claimed the lives of Palestinian children in the West Bank. On 14 March, two siblings, aged 5 and 7, were shot and killed by Israeli forces in the town of Tammun in the West Bank alongside their parents inside their car.

LONDON, 17 March 2025 – UNICEF UK has released its latest pay gap report, with the charity reporting a reduction in pay gaps across gender, ethnicity, disability and LGBTQIA+. For the first time, the report also looks at data on socio-economic background.

PORT SUDAN, 12 March 2025 – Reported drone attacks struck a secondary school and a primary healthcare centre in Shukairi village in White Nile State, Sudan, yesterday morning. At least eight students, four of them under the age of 18, and a health worker were killed. Many more were injured, and the schools in the locality have been closed as a result.