Together again

When nine-year-old Makka speaks, her voice barely rises above a whisper.

“When I am with my mom, I feel happy,” she says, holding tightly onto her mother’s dress. “I like doing things with her. I like washing with her. As long as I am near her.”

Even now, reunited, she still fears being separated again. Her mother is her anchor; all she and her siblings had left.

A harrowing escape

In the chaos of fleeing a sudden surge of drone strikes in Al Fasher, crowds surged, and families were scattered. Twins Makka and Medina fled with their mother toward the city gates. Their elderly grandmother, however, was too frail to move quickly. Torn between getting her children to safety and supporting her own mother, she made the heartbreaking decision to push the girls forward, urging them to hold tightly to one another before turning back for her mother.

But the crowd swallowed everything.

Swept along the chaotic road toward Tawila, the children struggled to stay upright as they protected their two-year-old brother, Adil. Terrified and pushed by the mass of people, they had no choice but to keep moving.

This was the beginning of seven long days without their mother, seven days that felt like forever.

Courage on the long road

The journey to Tawila was long and harsh. But the children refused to give up.

They took turns carrying little Adil, whose small legs couldn’t keep up. When they passed a family with a donkey cart, Medina gathered the courage to ask for help. Only Adil could fit, so the sisters followed the cart on foot, keeping their eyes locked on their brother as they walked.

When they reached Tawila, they were alone.

They begged for leftovers at the market. At night they slept wherever they found a corner of safety. Sometimes a kind family would let them sleep inside a makeshift shelter, protecting them from the cold.

“We were very scared,” Makka remembers. “We couldn’t stop crying. We only stopped when someone told us they had seen our mother.”

That hope kept them going.

A mother’s fear

Their mother, Fatma Eissa, was living every parent’s worst nightmare.

“I felt sick,” she recalls. “I arrived and found my children gone. My own mother was very sick, and we had no food. I didn’t know whether to turn back with her or keep going. I didn’t know which direction my children had gone.”

When she reached Tawila days later, she began searching immediately. She walked through the settlement from morning until night, refusing to rest until she found them.

“I cried every day,” she says. “I thought they were dead. I thought I would never see my children again.”

She asked everyone - families, aid workers, social workers - desperately hoping that someone had seen her children.

The search begins

At the gates of Tawila, social workers met Fatma as they registered new arrivals. When she told them her three children were missing, they immediately began documenting their names and descriptions for tracing.

Earlier that same day, those same social workers had found Makka, Medina and Adil alone and frightened in the market. They were registered as Unaccompanied and Separated Children in UNICEF’s Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR) system.

It was not long before the details matched. The search intensified and then came the moment every mother in crisis longs for: confirmation her children were alive.

A moment of pure relief

“When I saw my children, I couldn’t believe it,” Fatma says, tears filling her eyes at the memory. “They were so scared and confused. I never thought I would see them again.”

For her children, safety suddenly had a face again - their mother’s.

“Now I can do everything with my mom again,” Makka says with a shy smile. “I can be with her.”

Medina barely lets go of her mother’s hand. Even in their temporary shelter, she stays only steps away. She is afraid, perhaps, that distance could make her lose her mother again. For all three children, being together is safety.

Healing after separation

None of the children have ever been to school. Makka dreams of drawing and colouring one day, but she has no books or pencils.

For Fatma, healing will take time. “Being together again helps us cope,” she says. “But my children need support after everything they went through.”

A crisis of lost children

Since the violence started escalating in Al Fasher in late October 2025, more than 650 children have been identified as separated from their families. Many fled in chaos alongside strangers. Others arrived completely alone.

Through UNICEF and partners:

• 280 children have already been safely reunified with their families.
• Nearly 400 children are now living with foster families in Tawila, where they receive care, protection, and psychosocial support.

Finding the way back

In a conflict that has torn so many families apart, the reunion of Makka, Medina and Adil stands as a testament to resilience, hope and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her children. UNICEF and partners continue to work tirelessly to reunite children with their families and help them recover from trauma.

But many children are still missing. Still afraid. Still hoping to find their way back.

Every child has the right to grow up safe, protected, and surrounded by those who love them.