Waves of Sudanese families flee expanding war, arrive in impoverished Chad

Many people in Chad already depended on humanitarian assistance even before the start of the war in Sudan.

Thousands more Sudanese people fleeing the country’s bloody war continue to arrive in neighbouring and impoverished Chad, as the humanitarian situation deteriorates on the ground in the region.

More than 4.3 million Sudanese have fled to neighbouring countries since the start of the civil war in April 2023 between the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to the latest data confirmed by the United Nations.

Sudan is experiencing the world’s worst displacement crisis, with nearly 12 million people forced to run from homes under fire and hunger.

Tens of thousands of Sudanese are believed to be waiting to enter eastern Chad, because they believe it will be safer and they will find food. However, their destination is a country where some seven million people, at least half of them children, already require humanitarian assistance.

Dozens of families continue to arrive in Tine, a border town between Sudan and Chad, daily.

Tine resident Abdulsalam Abubakar told media’s Ahmed Idris that the same money he spent a few days ago at the market to buy food and other essential supplies will no longer buy the same quantity.

“Everything in the market here is expensive; nothing is cheap,” he said.

“Now food is expensive because more than 10,000 Sudanese arrived here after their country disintegrated,” said trader Khadijah Kurgule.

“There are goods everywhere but people can’t afford them,” she told media.

The thousands who fled the RSF-led mass killings in and around el-Fasher in western Sudan’s Darfur to arrive in Chad over the past few weeks only add to the more than one million people who have entered the country since the start of the Sudanese war.

media’s Idris said the continuous arrival of refugees from Sudan has intensified competition for food, shelter and water.

“Humanitarian aid workers worry that could lead to friction between refugees and host communities,” he said.

At water and aid collection distribution points, long queues have become common, and hospitals and schools are overextended as well.

John-Paul Habamungu, a UNHCR representative working on the ground, said 57 percent of the incoming Sudanese population are school-age children, but there are no schools for them.

The European Union on Thursday imposed sanctions against Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy leader of the RSF and the brother of its leader, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, over crimes committed during the storming of el-Fasher.

The sanctions place Dagalo under an EU-wide travel ban, freeze potential assets, and ban him from making indirect or direct profits, and from other resources within the 27-nation bloc, according to the European Commission.

“This sends a signal that the international community will come after those who are responsible,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters during a news conference on Thursday.