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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