"Since late December 2025, a devastating escalation of violence has swept across northern and central parts of South Sudan. At least 280,000 people have been displaced in Jonglei State alone. The majority are women and children. For some, this is the second or third time they have been forced to run.
"They fled with nothing. They are sleeping in displacement camps left over from the not-so-distant civil war - camps where there are barely any services. Others are out in the open, in remote locations, with nothing at all. We believe 53 per cent of those displaced are children.
"Let me say that again. More than half of the people caught in this escalating crisis are children. These children face killing and maiming. Recruitment into armed groups. Separation from their families. Gender-based violence. And profound psychological distress that will mark them for years.
"The health system is collapsing around them. Eleven health facilities have been attacked and looted since the fighting escalated. Nutrition centres that were keeping children alive have been forced to close.
"This week, in Bor Hospital in South Sudan, our team met a young mother called Aheu Deng. She was breastfeeding her two-year-old son. Aheu told us that when the fighting started, her family stayed at home for over a week. They kept cattle. They farmed. They sold crops. That was their life.
"All of that is gone.
"She fled into thick bush with her child. When she finally reached Bor, she had no milk. She could not afford to buy any. She was exhausted. She was in pain. And she was, visibly, still in shock.
Aheu is one of the lucky ones. She reached a hospital. Most have not.
"Cholera cases since January have climbed to 479 countrywide - 125 of those in Jonglei alone - with treatment centres overstretched and critically under-resourced.
"An estimated 825,000 children across Jonglei, Unity, and Eastern Equatoria are now at risk of acute malnutrition.
"And here is the number that should keep us all awake: a child with acute malnutrition, without treatment, is 12 times more likely to die.
"Pregnant and lactating mothers like Aheu are increasingly cut off from any maternal or newborn care.
"And the humanitarian infrastructure that could help these families is itself under attack.
"On 3 February, an MSF-supported hospital in Lankien was bombed. Its warehouse and essential medical supplies completely destroyed.
"Across the conflict zone, humanitarian assets and supplies have been looted, such as vehicles, food, communication equipment. Access remains severely constrained, especially in non-Government-controlled areas.
"Despite all of this, UNICEF is delivering.
"We were the first UN agency to get supplies in after the violence renewed. In partnership with other agencies and NGOs, we reached Akobo for the first time and delivered 2.5 metric tons of emergency health and nutrition supplies.
"We are responding to the cholera outbreak in Duk County. We are running primary healthcare, nutrition, water and sanitation, and child protection programmes in Eastern Equatoria and Unity.
"And in Bor, UNICEF-supported nutrition centres are treating children like Aheu's son - screening them, providing ready-to-use therapeutic food, pulling them back from the edge.
"But these are isolated windows. They cannot match the scale of what is unfolding in the country.
"We need an immediate cessation of hostilities.
"We need rapid, unhindered humanitarian access across all affected areas.
"Hundreds of thousands of children are depending on it. Mothers like Aheu are depending on it.
"Thank you."
