Millions have escaped Sudan’s civil war. But their nightmare isn’t over

Editor’s note: This story contains disturbing descriptions of sexual assault.

In one of those attacks, Naimat’s grandmother was fatally shot and her older sister was wounded.

Naimat, along with her mother and nine siblings, would eventually escape Sudan along a road where members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) manned roadblocks and ambushed, robbed, raped and killed fleeing civilians. The route was littered with bodies.

Naimat and her family made it across the border to Adré, in eastern Chad, where they joined more than 900,000 others who have fled violence and hunger in Sudan since fighting erupted between the country’s military and the RSF in April 2023. More than 13 million Sudanese have fled their homes because of violence and hunger, creating the world’s largest displacement crisis.

At a makeshift camp in Adré, Naimat’s family and 200,000 other Sudanese refugees endure harsh living conditions, chronic hunger and thirst, according to aid agencies operating in the area.

When Naimat fell ill in early August, her mother, Khadija Ishag Abdullah, was away for several days tilling millet fields to earn money to support her 10 children. Abdullah says when she returned to their shelter made from sticks and plastic sheeting, she found Naimat unable to walk or talk. Her daughter hadn’t eaten or had much to drink in days.

Heavy rains meant she had to wait another day to take Naimat to a nearby clinic run by the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders. When they arrived, Naimat could barely walk and she was struggling to breathe. Doctors found she had diphtheria and an infected abscess in her throat. She was also severely dehydrated. Abdullah watched in shock as doctors fought to save her daughter’s life.

Naimat died an hour before sunset on August 5. She was buried that evening in a sandy plot near a grove of wispy trees.

This is how civilians are dying in Sudan’s civil war. Not only by bullets and bombs, but from chronic hunger, thirst, disease, repeated displacement, and dire living conditions. Limited access to health care means illness and starvation lead to slow, painful and preventable deaths. “Conservative estimates say the conflict has killed at least 15,500 people, while some estimates are as high as 150,000, and counting,” according to the International Rescue Committee.

Trade routes, farms, commerce, agricultural infrastructure, and hospitals have all been devastated by the fighting. About half of the country’s 50 million people are now facing the world’s worst hunger crisis, portending a catastrophic famine of the kind not seen since Ethiopia in the 1980s. Health clinics in eastern Chad are filled with severely malnourished children, and refugees fleeing Darfur now say that hunger, not violence, is the main reason they left. Famine was declared in North Darfur in August, and aid agencies have warned that nearly 222,000 Sudanese children could starve to death this year.

Men and boys, mostly refugees from Sudan, gather under a tree for Friday prayers in the village of Tabery in eastern Chad.

Refugees recount the horrors they experienced

The war is driven by a host of rival powers competing for regional influence and access to resources such as gold. The United Arab Emirates, a key US ally, has armed and supported the RSF militias while Iran and Russia have also provided arms to the warring sides, according to numerous reports.

The RSF has conducted a new campaign of violence that Human Rights Watch and other organizations have called ethnic cleansing in Darfur, which suffered a genocide two decades ago. CNN has also reported on the RSF and allied Arab militia groups targeting and killing non-Arab people in Darfur. The paramilitary group has denied the allegations.

Refugees in eastern Chad recount these latest attacks with alarming candor. Jahwer Abdurahman, a 24-year-old refugee from the Masalit ethnic community, said that in May 2023, armed men wearing RSF uniforms attacked her mother’s home in El Geneina, shooting into rooms, killing both of her grandmothers and then burning their bodies. She said she was sitting against a wall when they shot her in the head and her sister in the knee and hand. Abdurahman’s nephew was also shot and killed.

Jahwer Abdurahman, who was shot in Sudan last year, poses for a portrait at a refugee camp in Farchana, Chad, in August.

Abdurahman was pregnant at the time. Her mother and daughter eventually helped her escape to eastern Chad along a road littered with dead bodies. Her husband, who fled separately, was killed along the way. Those who had fled with him said he was shot in a night ambush by militiamen from the RSF.

Abdurahman was finally transported, at times in a wheelbarrow, to the Doctors Without Borders clinic in Adré, where she was treated for her injuries. A year later, she is still partially paralyzed on her right side. She has also lost her sense of smell and suffers from severe headaches.

Rashida Ibrahim Adam, 28, described how she was raped in June 2023 by a soldier wearing an RSF uniform. Four armed men surrounded her as she was searching for belongings she had abandoned during a previous attack on a displaced camp. One of the soldiers told Adam, “You Masalit girls, you should give birth to our Arab babies,” she said, adding that a soldier pushed her into a room while the three others guarded the door. She said the soldier kept her for nearly two hours and raped her four times. When he was finished, he told her: “Go from here. Don’t come back,” Adam said.

Naima Muteer Muhajar, 8, poses at a refugee camp in Farchana. Her mother said she was shot by armed men wearing uniforms of the Rapid Support Forces.

Rashida Ibrahim Adam said she was raped last year by a soldier wearing an RSF uniform.

Abdullah El Hadj Abdullah, 18, said he was at home in November when armed men wearing RSF uniforms came to loot houses in his neighborhood. He, his aunt and six sisters had nothing worth taking, but he said an RSF fighter shot him in the thigh. His aunt cleaned the wound and carried him on her back for some of the journey to eastern Chad. As they traveled the treacherous route on foot and by donkey, they said RSF soldiers shot at them and wounded four other boys traveling with them. Their phones and luggage were also stolen, along with the little water they were able to carry. His injured leg was amputated when he reached a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Adré. Abdullah once dreamed of being a football player. Now, as he awaits a prosthetic leg, he plays a football video game on his phone.

Such grim accounts are echoed by many refugees from Darfur. Both the RSF and the government’s Sudanese Armed Forces have committed war crimes in Sudan, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has accused the RSF and allied militias of committing crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence. They are also responsible for ethnic cleansing in Darfur, he said.

Nada Hassaballah, 22, comforts her younger sister Issra Hassaballah, 20, who was suffering from malaria and being treated at a crowded health post run by volunteer doctors and medical workers in Adré.

Women from Darfur wade across a flooded area marking the border between Sudan and eastern Chad.

But even widespread and high-profile reports of mass atrocities and a spiraling crisis of epic proportions have done little to stall Sudan’s war as the world remains preoccupied by entrenched conflicts at risk of escalating in Ukraine and the Middle East. A fraction of the funds needed to deal with Sudan's crisis have been made available, the UN says.

“The world has treated Sudan as an invisible crisis, rarely covered in the world press,” Tom Perriello, the US Special Envoy for Sudan, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May.

In the face of global indifference, Sudanese refugees have had to fend for themselves. Lawyers who fled Darfur conduct interviews with their fellow refugees in eastern Chad, gathering witness testimonies of ethnically-driven attacks. At a makeshift health clinic in Adré, health workers and doctors who fled Darfur work as volunteers, treating hundreds of patients weekly for malaria, malnutrition and other ailments.

Remembering Naimat

In the days following her death, Naimat Ahmed’s family held a mourning ceremony and feast for the 10-year-old, with neighbors contributing what they could toward the cost of a goat that was slaughtered in her honor. For days, people passed by the family hut to pay their respects.

Naimat was tall for her age and wanted to be a teacher. Her family spoke of her playfulness and enthusiasm for chores her siblings avoided, especially fetching water.

“She used to wear my shoes, steal my hair spray and my phone, and I would get so annoyed,” said Naimat’s older sister, Fardous, 21. “But now I really miss her. She used to sleep next to me.”

Naimat’s mother described her daughter as a “funny girl” who loved laughing and joking.

“She was so kind to me, always comforting me when I’m sad,” she said. “Every morning she opened her eyes and looked for me. Now she’s gone.”

-CNN