Displaced Sudanese Children Resume School in Port Sudan’s Al-Hishan Camp

In Port Sudan, displaced Sudanese children are resuming schooling for the first time since conflict erupted in April 2023, with a makeshift educational initiative taking shape inside the Al-Hishan displacement camp in the eastern coastal city.

“Nearly three years of war in Sudan have deprived more than eight million children of education, the Save the Children NGO said on Thursday, pointing to one of the world's longest interruptions to schooling”

20 Minuten

Africanews describes children “grateful to be back in the classroom” at the camp, where laughter has returned even as many arrived “traumatised by often multiple displacements, starvation, and the horrors they had witnessed.”

20 Minuten

The reporting ties the effort to the scale of the education crisis, saying the children are among “the estimated 8 million youngsters who have not been able to attend school since the start of Sudan’s civil war in April 2023.”

At the camp, tents arranged in a square function as an elementary school for “more than 1,000 children,” and educators say nearly a third require an accelerated curriculum to make up for lost time.

UNICEF’s spokesperson in Sudan, Mira Nasser, is quoted saying, “More than eight million children are out of school because schools are being used as centres for the displaced or by warring parties,” and the same account adds that “Here they can at least get a sense of normalcy, even in a displacement site.”

Al Jazeera Net similarly places the scene in the Hayshan camp near Port Sudan, describing “a row of square-shaped tents” that “houses more than a thousand students,” and it quotes Mira Nasr telling AFP, “They come here frightened and tired and feel lonely, but with time you see their drawings change.”

The education push is also framed through individual experience, with Africanews quoting teacher Soad Awadallah: “I am so happy that after all these years, I am teaching children and that they can benefit from my experience,” and with a 14-year-old student, Ibrahim, saying, “I miss my friends and my family, I miss my school in Khartoum, it was full of trees.”

The education efforts in Port Sudan are presented against a broader collapse of schooling across Sudan since the start of the civil war in April 2023, when fighting between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries left schools closed, damaged, or repurposed.

20 Minuten reports that nearly three years of war have deprived “more than eight million children of education,” describing it as “one of the world’s longest interruptions to schooling,” and it specifies that “More than eight million children—nearly half of the 17 million of school age—spent about 484 days without stepping into a classroom.”

Africanews

The same account says “Many schools are closed, others have been damaged by the conflict or are used as shelters” for “the roughly seven million displaced people across the country,” and it identifies North Darfur as the most affected state, where “only 3% of the more than 1,100 schools there are still operating.”

It also reports that the RSF seized the city of El-Facher in October, described as “the last of the region's five capitals that had escaped them,” and it lists school-operation rates in West Kordofan, Darfur South, and Darfur West as “15%, 13%, and 27% of schools in operation, respectively.”

In the Port Sudan camp accounts, the same pattern appears in the way schooling is improvised: Streamline’s description says schools have been “reduced to rubble or repurposed as military barracks,” and it adds that the camp’s accelerated learning program is designed to compensate for “three entirely lost academic years.”

Al Jazeera Net also frames the disruption as a loss of normal learning time, quoting Souad Awadallah, 52, saying, “some of them even forgot how to read and write,” because of “the time the students wasted between months and years.”

The UNICEF and UN News reporting extends the timeline and scale beyond Port Sudan by describing how displacement has expanded, with UN News saying “more than 17 million school-age children” are out of school and that “Hundreds of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the civil war in Sudan in April 2023.”

Across the camp reporting, educators and children describe both the psychological weight of displacement and the relief of returning to structured learning.

“War in Sudan has not deprived Afrah of the ambition to continue her education, nor her determination to achieve her dream of becoming a surgeon”

Al-Jazeera Net

Africanews quotes teacher Soad Awadallah saying, “I am so happy that after all these years, I am teaching children and that they can benefit from my experience,” and it describes how children’s drawings were initially dominated by war, with depictions of “tanks, weapons, and death.”

Al Jazeera Net adds a similar account of the drawings changing over time, quoting UNICEF spokesperson Mira Nasr: “They come here frightened and tired and feel lonely, but with time you see their drawings change,” and it continues with her statement that “They begin to adapt and absorb.”

The same Al Jazeera Net report includes a detailed recollection from Awatif Al-Ghali, 48, an Arabic language teacher, who says, “There were 60 teachers here, and we began to work,” and it describes how teachers divided students by educational level and began lessons with review.

It also quotes Souad Awadallah, 52, explaining the early conditions: “We needed a lot of patience at the start, when all the children were still sitting on the ground,” and it adds her assessment that “some of them even forgot how to read and write.”

For students, the accounts emphasize longing for home and a desire for future careers: Africanews quotes 14-year-old Ibrahim saying, “I miss my friends and my family, I miss my school in Khartoum, it was full of trees,” while Al Jazeera Net quotes him saying, “I want to become a petroleum engineer.”

Another student, 13-year-old Afrah, is quoted in Al Jazeera Net saying, “I was reviewing my lessons again and again,” and she frames her ambition as “dream of becoming a surgeon.”

The reporting also includes a broader warning about education as protection, with Mira Nasr telling AFP, “the future of children is on the line, and education itself is a form of protection.”

While the core facts of schooling disruptions and makeshift education recur, the outlets emphasize different angles—numbers and system breakdown in some cases, and individual return-to-classroom stories in others.

20 Minuten foregrounds the scale and duration of lost schooling, stating that “More than eight million children—nearly half of the 17 million of school age—spent about 484 days without stepping into a classroom,” and it warns that “Without urgent investment, warns NGO head Inger Ashing, 'we risk condemning an entire generation to a future defined by conflict.'”

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By contrast, UN News centers on a single child, Wisam, describing her as “among more than 100,000 children displaced by the war in Sudan who have returned to school,” and it links that return to Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and UNICEF-funded distribution of school supplies.

UN News also quantifies the broader reopening effort, saying “With the reopening of 489 schools, nearly 119,870 children in Sudan's Red Sea State have returned to school,” and it places the narrative in third grade, where Wisam “eagerly participates in class discussions and raises her hand confidently to answer questions.”

The Streamline piece, meanwhile, focuses on trauma-informed learning in Port Sudan, describing how educators report that “the initial days of schooling were fraught with severe psychological challenges,” and it says children produced drawings dominated by “tanks, automatic weapons, and the visceral horrors of their violent displacement.”

Streamline also adds a camp-level detail that “Nearly a third of the children at the camp require intensive, fast-tracked coursework to compensate for three entirely lost academic years,” and it quotes teacher Soad Awadallah emphasizing mutual healing: she “emphasized the mutual healing found within the boundaries of the classroom.”

Africanews blends both approaches by quoting UNICEF’s Mira Nasser about schools being used as shelters and by returning to the camp’s daily life, saying “With each passing day, the learning crisis deepens while the country also risks raising a generation without the needed skills.”

Al Jazeera Net, in turn, uses a mix of camp scenes and teacher recollections, quoting Mira Nasr to AFP that “Here, at least they can feel some aspects of normal life, even in a displacement site,” while also including the specific detail that teachers “designed timetables” and began lessons with review.

The education crisis in Sudan is presented as extending beyond Port Sudan into neighboring countries, with UN and UNICEF reporting describing displacement pressures and the need for continued funding and services.

“Promises aplenty: Wisam's return to school in Sudan”

UN News

UN News says Sudan is facing “the world's largest displacement crisis for children,” with “more than 17 million school-age children currently out of school,” and it adds that “Many others are being used as shelters,” while ECW and UNICEF support “safe spaces for children and temporary learning centers, teacher training, provision of teaching materials, mental health and psychosocial support, and much more.”

UN News

UNICEF’s Chad mission reporting ties the Sudan conflict to a regional influx, stating that Catherine Russell concluded a three-day mission to Chad on June 23, 2025, and that “more than 700,000 children” arrived in Chad from the east of the country “since violence began in April 2023.”

The UNICEF release says the number of children displaced by the Sudan conflict has risen to “more than two million,” and it quotes Russell warning that “Hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable children are being hit hard by the war in Sudan, and once refugees, by the lack of essential services in Chad.”

It also reports that “The rate of school dropout among refugee children is extremely worrying, with two in three affected,” and it describes health and protection pressures, including that Chad is facing “a measles outbreak and malnutrition” and is “at high risk of being affected by the cholera outbreak currently sweeping across parts of western Darfur.”

The UNICEF release provides a funding figure, saying UNICEF needs “US$114 million in 2025” to carry out humanitarian interventions in Chad and that it has raised “34% of the funds needed.”

In the Sudan-focused camp accounts, the consequences are described as a risk of a “lost generation,” with 20 Minuten quoting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemning rising strikes against essential civilian infrastructure including “hospitals, markets, and schools,” and warning about “the arming of civilians and the recruitment of children.”

Across the accounts, the next steps are consistently tied to education as protection and to maintaining learning opportunities even when formal schooling is unavailable, with Al Jazeera Net quoting Mira Nasr that “education itself is a form of protection,” and with UN News describing how schools help protect children from “harmful practices such as child marriage, child labor, and forced recruitment by armed groups.”