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THE ONGOING CONFLICT in Sudan is causing a humanitarian emergency threatening to destabilise an entire region.
Earlier this summer I visited the border between Sudan and South Sudan and saw firsthand the dire situation facing people escaping the fighting.
Since the conflict first erupted in April, over 4 million people have fled their homes. Most are displaced within Sudan but now, another grim milestone has been reached in this brutal conflict with new figures showing that over a million people have fled to neighbouring countries.
Over 220,000 people have crossed the border into South Sudan. Most are South Sudanese who entered through the Joda border crossing in Upper Nile State where I saw a steady, continuous flow of people arriving with only the possessions they could carry.
People were tired but relieved to have made it across the border, but others I spoke to told me of their worry for the safety of loved ones who remain behind in Sudan.
At Joda, people wait to be transported some 45 kilometres away to the town of Renk where nearly 40,000 people are now staying across a number of displacement sites, including churches and warehouses.
It was in Renk that I visited a transit centre within the walled grounds of a dilapidated building. The centre is only meant to hold up to 2,000 people for a few days before they move onwards, but it was severely overcrowded, and I met a number of people who had been there for weeks on end.
According to UN agencies, nearly 8,000 people are currently in the transit centre, almost four times the amount of people the centre is meant to be able to hold. People had pulled together makeshift shelters using anything from blankets to clothes and for the ‘lucky’ few, tarpaulin sheets. Right now, it’s rainy season in South Sudan and these shelters aren’t enough to protect them from the heavy downpours.
While I was in Renk, a thunderstorm struck overnight which turned the ground at the transit centre into a sea of mud. Without nearly enough toilets, hygiene and sanitation are major challenges and there is a real risk of diseases such as cholera spreading.
People in the transit centre don’t have enough food to eat and are surviving on a diet of sorghum. I saw many malnourished children and on my first day there, four children had tragically died from diarrhoea and fever.
With the transit centre massively overcrowded, many new arrivals had no choice but to set up makeshift shelters outside the centre’s walls. Some were even sleeping out in the open, completely exposed to the intermittent soaking rain and scorching hot sun.
People fleeing horror in Sudan arrived in Renk with hope, but that hope was quickly quenched when they discover there is little to no support awaiting them.
I met one lady, Rebecca, a widowed mum of seven, who told me her family had been sleeping out in the open on land next to the transit centre.
As well as looking after her own family, Rebecca was also caring for two children who had become separated from their families as they made their way to South Sudan.
What Rebecca’s family have gone through is nothing short of horrific. Originally from South Sudan, she and her family were living in an area northwest of Sudan’s capital city Khartoum when the fighting broke out. Her eldest daughter had a baby delivered by caesarean section who tragically passed away a few days later. However, because of the fighting, the family had no way to arrange for the baby to be buried.
After witnessing her neighbours being raped in the street by armed men, Rebecca made a number of attempts to escape with her family before finally finding a way out of Khartoum and on to Renk.
Her eldest daughter, who also suffers from convulsions, had no medication with her and had still not recovered from her operation. Coupled with their poor living conditions, Rebecca told me she worried that her daughter might not survive without medical attention.
Christian Aid’s partner Lutheran World Federation is responding in Renk, giving families cash so that they can buy food and other essentials, as well as ‘dignity’ kits containing soap and sanitary towels for women and girls. With funding from Irish Aid, Christian Aid is also supporting people fleeing with a local partner working close to another border crossing in the northwest of the country.
Yet despite best efforts, aid agencies responding at the border are being overwhelmed as more and more people continue to flee Sudan. Too many arrivals are struggling with food shortages and a lack of proper shelter or medical care. And these hardships are only set to get even worse as the money needed to transport people onwards from already overcrowded displacement sites runs out.
There is a humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes along South Sudan’s border. The international community must urgently provide more support to prevent the situation from deteriorating into a catastrophe.
Rosamond Bennett is Chief Executive of Christian Aid Ireland. To support Christian Aid’s work visit www.christianaid.ie
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In relation to this article, that 36yr old woman looks 20 years older that she she is, god love her
@Marie Agnew: 7 kids at 36?? The poor woman. That’s a lot to cope with.
None of the comments are related to the article but one specific topic.
The journal; better leave comments open for all articles except on going legal cases or close them for all. But if you close comments for all articles you will lose followers as many people constantly on the page for comments. Media outlets on both spectrums also enjoy polarisation of the society.
Interestingly nothing mentioned about the black axe gang case. Selective journalism.
D W Chaney: it won’t let me reply to your directly probably because I’m not on the app, but not being allowed comment to some stories can be for legal reasons, some random poster puts up a comment in relation to a case and can jeopardize a legal case straight away. With regard to other issues like the trans, i remember years ago, gay people were treated in the exact same way, nowadays people understand. For trans it’s a new concept that people find hard to fathom so ridicule and criticism towards them is the order of the day, why allow strangers to be cruel to people they don’t know.
@Marie Agnew: there are only two genders
@Marie Agnew: It’s fine until they start teaching this at primary, it’s sexual deviance for most let’s not pretend it’s anything else, put it this way, there won’t be no trans story time around these parts for children.
@Tom L: Funny how they never read for old people or the disabled. Only children. Funny how their flag is baby blue and baby pink. Really makes you think.
@Tom L: eewwww, why does your brain even connect children and sexual deviancy in the same thought? Projection if you ask me….
@Sweet Cheese: it’s blatantly obvious what’s going on to anyone with a brain and it’s disgusting
What the media is not telling you is that the CIA are up to their neck in Sudan having backed gen burhan who is pro USA. Gen buhan is losing and now only has 25 PC control of sudan so the answer is? …,……. More democracy bombs.
This is an article about Sudan. Where is Roy Dowling ? Then again , all the comments are about something else, so maybe he is here!
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