They Fled Sudan’s Civil War — And Now Face Famine In Chad

CHAD — The story of the Sudanese civil war is written on the body of 8-year-old Fathia Arbab Ishaq. It’s a war no beginning and no end in sight.

Fathia was 4 when, in 2021, the tent where she lived with her family was hit by fighters from the Rapid Support Forces, who had raided the El Geneina camp for displaced people. Two years later, she escaped Sudan with her mother Huwaida Adurahman Adam, now 36, fleeing a massacre that killed two of Huwaida’s four children.

Today, Fathia and her mother are among the 700,000 refugees who fled from the Darfur region to Chad. They live in a tent, the floor is a blanket on the ground and the bathroom is a water tank filled from a well a kilometer away. Fathia, who saw her brothers die before her eyes, has not gone to school for two years, does not eat enough because there is not enough food for everyone, stands on crutches and walks with the dignity of a survivor.

A permanent conflict 

Civil war in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023. Since then, the country has been the stage of a devastating conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhane — who seized power with a coup in 2021 — and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group led by Fattah’s former vice-general, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Both armies have been accused of carrying out war crimes since the beginning of the conflict. The El Geneina massacre, which Fathia and her mom fled, is one of them. 

For two months — between spring and summer 2023 — the forces fighting in El Geneina were the Masalit and other non-Arab groups, supporting the SAF, and the RSF with some allied Arab militias. In June, the RSF besieged the city, torturing and killing the Masalit governor of the West Darfur state, Khamis Abbakar. By June 22, El Geneina fell into the hands of the RSF. 

“No Masalit will survive, we will kill you all,” the militiamen shouted. 

Humanitarian organizations estimate that 10,000 people were killed in the massacres, most of them from the Masalit ethnic group. Those who managed to escape the siege fled to neighboring Chad, to save themselves and to recount what they saw: the abuse and torture, the mass graves, the men grouped together and executed, the systematic violence on women. And their dying kids, for whom there was nothing they could do. The daily violence, the civilians attacked, killed and kidnapped. The women raped before their kids or their mothers, while trying to reach the closest border by foot. 

Huwaida is one of the refugees bearing these memories. As she tried to flee, she saw men being dragged down from carts to be separated from their wives, and executed before everyone’s eyes. “No Masalit will survive, we will kill you all,” Huwaida says the militiamen shouted. 

Stuck in limbo

In 2023, the war broke out in Sudan’s capital, Karthoum, a first in a country where conflict usually happens in more peripheral regions — such as Darfur in the early 2000s, or the one that led to the creation of South Sudan.  

The first consequence of a conflict that breaks out in urban areas — which are usually more densely populated — is a mass displacement. This exodus quickly turned Sudan into the biggest — and largely forgotten — humanitarian crisis in the world. 

More than half of the population, or some 25 million people, needs humanitarian assistance and protection. But the lack of funding and security have made numerous areas of the country inaccessible. As of today, almost 13 million people have been displaced in all of Sudan. Some 4 million of them have moved to bordering countries. 

The world forgot about us.

Almortada Mohamed arrived in Chad two years ago, also from El Geneina. He is 23, and he was studying engineering in Sudan before the civil war. Today, he lives inside a shack that he is equipping for the rainy season. Every day, he wears the one of same two shirts he managed to bring with him, and walks to a support center founded by other young people like him. Deprived of the opportunity to study and with their future suspended, they joined forces to open a center dedicated to feeding young children. 

Feeding, and not nourishing — Mohamed stresses — because the meal they serve every morning, a bowl filled with broth and some cereals, lacks all the nutrients the kids require to fill their stomachs. 

Almortada fled with his entire family: Everyone managed to survive the war. But now they have nothing left.

“We need access to education, healthcare. We need a future, but we are stuck in limbo. We are like trapped animals: We can’t go back home, and here, even though we are welcomed, we live in a state of abandonment. The world forgot about us, and meanwhile people in Sudan are starving to death,” he says.

Aid stretched thin

According to the UN’s World Food Programme, hunger in the country has reached catastrophic levels, making Sudan the only place in the world where famine has been officially declared in multiple regions. It was already confirmed in 10 areas, and 17 more are considered at risk. In some areas of the country, food aid is the only barrier preventing famine. 

But vital humanitarian operations are more and more limited, due not only to security reasons but also to a lack of funds. The UNHCR-led 2025 regional plan to assist Sudanese refugees — amounting to $1.8 billion — is aimed at helping 5 million refugees and the communities hosting them. So far, it is only 10% funded. A lack of money translates into a lack of food, and because there are no flights to move aid from the capital to the borders, hunger becomes deadly. 

The World Food Programme was forced to reduce rations to 70% in famine-affected areas, and to 50% in those considered at risk. At the national level, close to 25 million people — or half of Sudan’s population — suffer from extreme hunger. Nearly 5 million babies and their nursing mothers suffer from acute malnutrition. 

Nearly 5 million babies

Malnourished children arrive everyday at the hospital in André, Chad, where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs operations in the pediatrics and psychological support units. Inside a room filled with 24 beds, the ones at the end of the room are occupied by two newborns weighing less than 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds). One is six months old, the other seven.

If the hospital was equipped with adequate machinery and sufficient equipment, many of the babies treated for premature births or severe diseases could be cured. But the mortality rate remains very high, and the hospital is 900 kilometers away from N’djamena, Chad’s capital. 

There is only one answer.

Miriam fled Zalingei, the capital city of Central Darfur state. After a bomb hit a house adjacent to hers, she fled with her four-year-old child. All she could carry with her was a bit of water and some flour. She walked for dozens of kilometers, because she could not afford to travel on a convoy. 

On the opposite bed, Hosna Mohmeed, 37, cuddles his 2-year-old son, who is severely undernourished. But Hosna did not flee Sudan; he and his wife, who sits next to him, are farmers from Chad. They also struggle to feed their three kids and are in desperate need of food and healthcare aid. 

Hosna looks at his child, trying to feed him with a syringe filled with milk. But the child vomits twice.

“I don’t understand. What’s wrong with him?” Hosna asks. Everyone is silent. There is only one answer: hunger.