(Adré) The conflict raging in Sudan has thrown thousands of people into exile, particularly to flee the violence in Darfur where the international community is worried about ethnic cleansing, and many are finding refuge in the overcrowded camps in the eastern desert of Chad.
Sitting on the ground, in front of her makeshift shelter in the Adré camp, in eastern Chad, Mariam Adam Yaya, 34, tries to quell her hunger by warming up tea on firewood.
The woman, from the non-Arab Massalit tribe, crossed the border on foot after a four-day journey, without any food, her eight-year-old son on her back. She claims to have had to abandon seven other of her children after an attack on her village by “heavily armed” men.
Since April 15, Sudan has been in the grip of a war between the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR, paramilitary) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo.
In Darfur, civilians are victims of large-scale violence which has made the UN fear a new genocide in the region.
“What we experienced in Ardamata is appalling. The rapid support forces indiscriminately killed elderly people and children,” she told AFP.
In the town of Ardamata alone, in West Darfur, more than 1,000 people were killed in early November by armed groups, according to the European Union. This violence forced more than 8,000 people to flee to neighboring Chad in a week, according to the UN.
Several Western capitals, including Washington, have accused “members of the RSF and allied militias of committing crimes against humanity and acts of ethnic cleansing.” The European Union, “appalled”, also suspects “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur.
PHOTO DENIS SASSOU GUEIPEUR, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Refugees line up to get some water.
The refugees, once arriving in the border province of Ouaddaï, crowd into camps managed by NGOs and into other informal ones, where they set up makeshift shelters.
Chad, a central African state which is the second least developed country in the world according to the UN, is home to the largest number of Sudanese refugees, with 484,626 people since the start of the conflict in April, according to the latest figures from Haut United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
To the suffering of exile and the horror of the atrocities experienced, is added hunger.
Since her arrival in Chad, Mariam Adam Yaya and her child “barely eat”, she explains to AFP. The lack of water is also a source of tension in the camps, which the humanitarian organizations present are struggling to ease.
“In groups of 20”
Sitting on a bed in an emergency medical structure of the NGO Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), located on the outskirts of the Adré camp, Amira Khamis, a 46-year-old Massalit woman, rests her two feet broken by shrapnel. ‘shell.
Traumatized, the survivor, who lost five of her children, testifies to the blind violence suffered because of her “community belonging”.
“They killed all the people with dark black skin,” she told AFP, adding that she witnessed the rape of women and young girls.
With his broken right arm supported by a bandage around his neck, Mahamat Nouredine, a 19-year-old young man, confirms the relentless pursuit of the Massalit by the FSR.
“A group of RSF chased us to a hospital and tried to kill everyone […] they put us on the ground in groups of 20, and shot us,” says the young man who managed to flee to Chad.
“Their unspoken objective is to kill people because of their skin color,” he believes, grieving over the killing of four members of his family.
For the coordinator of the MSF program in Adré, Gérard Uparpiu, “the situation is taking on a worrying proportion with the influx of new Sudanese refugees”.
“We receive these people who arrive in very critical conditions. They are physically and psychologically upset,” he adds.
Especially since the journey to Chad proved perilous for the refugees.
“They also attacked us when I was being transported to Chad for treatment,” says Amir Adam Haroun, a Massalit refugee whose leg was broken by an explosive shrapnel.
Sudan’s eight months of war have left 12,000 people dead, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project, while the United Nations says nearly 6.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes.