Chad hosts over 680,000 Sudanese refugees

Over 680,000 Sudanese refugees have found safety in Chad, forced to flee the war raging back home.

In the last month alone, 60,000 new refugees arrived; the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said this week.

The vast majority of the new arrivals are women and children, many reach the border after walking for long distances before entering to neighbouring Chad.

“We had nothing to eat at home, part of my house was also burnt down. Before we left, seven people were killed in front of our house. Nights have always been terrifying for us, there are so many people who have been killed. “I lost all my precious possessions. Initially, we didn’t live in El-Geneina. We were a few kilometres from El-Geneina where we kept cattle, goats, and poultry. We have lost everything.”

However, suffering doesn't end in Chad. Refugees arrive in a country with limited resources. Chad is facing the greatest refugee influx in its history, according to the United Nations.

The country's weak economy and poor infrastructure is grappling with a mix of conflict, climate crisis, and food insecurity.

In a context of "non-stop humanitarian emergencies, of insufficient humanitarian funding, and where displacement is increasingly protracted in time with host community increasingly affected, we need to rethink our approaches to refugee displacement to make them more sustainable," Filippo Grandi said.