New wave of Sudanese refugees flee into neighbouring Chad

Large numbers of Sudanese refugees are pouring into eastern Chad with more than 18,500 people arriving in the past two weeks alone, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

After the bombing of the Zamzam camp for internally displaced people in Darfur and the city of al-Fasher, it says hundreds of thousands of people are on the move.

Many of them, including children, elderly people, and pregnant women, are severely malnourished.

"We didn't expect this big influx of people,” says Jean-Paul Habamungu, head of the UNHCR sub-office in Chad.

“It's terrible here at the border, many children, unaccompanied children like the one of 14 years we just met,  this boy of 9 years who is crying here looking for their parents.”

Habamungu says there are also many people with specific needs including pregnant and lactating women who are malnourished.

“So we expect more malnourished people coming now, talking about people who are dying on their way from Zamzam to between Tawila and Tiné, dying with hunger.”

The UNHCR says some 76% of them have lived through traumatic experiences such as sexual violence, extortion, and theft.

In addition, it says Chad is struggling to take in the new arrivals.

It already hosts some 1.3 million refugees, including 794,000 who have fled Sudan since the civil war started there over two years ago.

Humanitarian resources across the country are severely limited, impacting the ability to provide water, shelter, health, education, and protection.

Last month, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces stormed into the Zamzam camp and went on a three-day rampage, killing at least 400 people, after months of starving its population with a siege. 

Refugees and aid workers say RSF fighters gunned down men and women in the streets, beat and tortured others, and raped and sexually assaulted women and girls.

The 11 April attack was the worst ever suffered by Zamzam, Sudan’s largest displacement camp, in its 20 years of existence.

Once home to some 500,000 residents, the camp has been virtually emptied.

The RSF also destroyed Zamzam’s only functioning medical centre, killing nine workers from Relief International.

Much of the south and east of the camp was burned to the ground, the General Coordination said.