When the Sky is a Threat: The Toll of Airstrikes on Children, Schools, and the Forgotten Villages of South Sudan

By South Sudan Youth Reforms (SSYR)
July 2025

Schools Replaced by Fear

Many classrooms in Upper Nile now lie in ruins. Chalkboards are shattered, walls riddled with shrapnel, and students scattered across the bush—too afraid to gather in one place. Education, already weak in rural areas, has collapsed entirely in some regions. Teachers have fled. Schoolbooks are burned. Children as young as seven now live in hiding, often without adult protection.

“We had just opened the school for term one,” said a community elder in Ulang. “Then the plane came. Everyone ran. We found the headmaster dead under the rubble.”

For a generation of children, the trauma of war is being learned in place of math or reading. Some have not seen a classroom in years.

The Elderly and Vulnerable: Forgotten Casualties

In most bombed villages, the elderly, disabled, and widowed women are the ones left behind. They cannot run. They cannot hide. And no government official comes after the dust settles. These citizens—many of whom lived through previous wars—are now isolated, injured, and cut off from any public service: no healthcare, no clean water, no food rations, and no security.

SSYR field reports have documented multiple cases where elders died days after airstrikes—not from wounds, but from shock, hunger, or dehydration, as no aid arrived.

Where is the State?

The Juba-based regime continues to claim sovereignty over these areas but provides no services: no hospitals, no education, no roads, and no security. Instead, they send in jets and armed patrols—then blame the White Army or local militias for instability.

“If we are your citizens, why do you only send planes to kill us, not to save us?” — Displaced mother in Nasir

Children Growing Up in Silence and Ashes

With each passing day, the gap between the central government and rural populations grows wider. Children born into air raids and fear grow up without national identity, feeling abandoned by the country that should protect them. Some will join militias. Others will flee to refugee camps. Most will carry deep scars—mental, physical, cultural—for life.

SSYR Calls for Immediate Action

• Cease all airstrikes in civilian areas
• Investigate war crimes and publish aerial strike data
• Provide emergency education services in affected counties
• Rebuild trust by working with community leaders—not against them
• Deploy international humanitarian agencies to Nasir, Ulang, and Maiwut immediately

“Peace does not fall from the sky. But bombs do. And until we stop the planes, we cannot talk of nationhood.”