The conflict raging in Sudan has forced thousands of people into exile, mostly fleeing violence in Darfur, where the international community fears ethnic cleansing and many are seeking refuge in overcrowded camps. from the desert in eastern Chad.
Mariam Adam Yaya, 34, sits on the ground outside her makeshift shelter in the Adré camp in eastern Chad, trying to satisfy her hunger by heating tea on firewood.
The woman, from the non-Arab Massalit tribe, crossed the border on foot after a four-day journey without food, carrying her eight-year-old son on her back. She says she had to leave seven more of her children behind after an attack on her village by “heavily armed” men.
Since April 15, a war has raged in Sudan between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo's Rapid Support Forces (FSR, paramilitary).
In Darfur, civilians are falling victim to large-scale violence that has the UN fearing a new genocide in the region.
“What we experienced in Ardamata is horrific. The rapid response workers killed elderly people and children indiscriminately,” she told AFP.
According to the European Union, more than 1,000 people were killed by armed groups in the city of Ardamata in West Darfur alone in early November. According to the United Nations, this violence forced more than 8,000 people to flee to neighboring Chad within a week.
Several Western capitals, including Washington, have accused “members of the RSF and allied militias of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.” The European Union is also “horrified” to suspect “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur.
Once refugees arrive in the border province of Ouaddaï, they crowd into camps run by NGOs and other informal camps where they set up makeshift shelters.
Chad, a Central African nation that the UN says is the second least developed country in the world, is hosting the largest number of Sudanese refugees, with 484,626 people, since the conflict began in April, according to the latest figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Added to the suffering of exile and the horror of the atrocities experienced is hunger.
Since arriving in Chad, Mariam Adam Yaya and her child “hardly eat anything,” she tells AFP. The lack of water is also a source of tension in the camps, which humanitarian organizations there are having difficulty easing.
“In groups of 20”
Amira Khamis, a 46-year-old Massalit woman, sits on a bed in an emergency medical facility run by the NGO Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) on the edge of the Adré camp, resting on her two feet that were broken by shrapnel.
The traumatized survivor, who lost five of her children, testifies to the blind violence she suffered because of her “belonging to the community.”
“They killed all people with dark black skin,” she told AFP, adding that she had 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 FSR's tireless persecution of the Massalit.
“A group of RSF followed 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 escape to Chad.
“Their unspoken goal is to kill people because of the color of their skin,” he believes, mourning the murder of four members of his family.
For the coordinator of the MSF program in Adré, Gérard Uparpiu, “the situation is taking on worrying proportions with the influx of new Sudanese refugees.”
“We are receiving these people who arrive in very critical conditions. They are physically and mentally upset,” he adds.
Especially since the journey to Chad turned out to be life-threatening for the refugees.
“They also attacked us when I was being transported to Chad for treatment,” said Amir Adam Haroun, a Massalit refugee whose leg was broken by an explosive grenade.
According to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project, 12,000 people have died in Sudan's eight months of war, while nearly 6.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.