At the Goudrane refugee camp in eastern Chad, home to some 50,000 Sudanese refugees, water tanks ran dry for four days before a water truck finally appeared. Hundreds rushed toward it, scrambling for canisters to sustain life. Women at the front fell and screamed as children jostled. Within ten minutes, all 6,000 liters were gone.
Rokhia Ibrahim, a 43-year-old former teacher from Sudan, watched her students leave empty-handed. “Less than a year ago, I saw children like them die of thirst on the road fleeing el-Fasher,” she said.
The water crisis is pushing refugees to despair. At the clinic in the Goudrane camp, the sole doctor said: “We have medicine for infections, but without clean water you cannot take it.”
According to the United Nations, more than 938,000 people have fled Sudan to Chad since the war erupted in April 2023. Most live in overcrowded camps in the arid east, where the water each person receives is less than half the UNHCR minimum standard.
Solidarités International, which has worked in Chad since 2008, says the water emergency in the eastern camps is among the most acute it has ever seen. Country director Thibault Henry stated: “We are doing everything to improve access to clean water, but current funding is insufficient to guarantee it for everyone.”
Heartbreaking stories continue to emerge. Zahra Khamis, a Masalit woman whose community was systematically targeted by the RSF, recounted: “We dodged bullets and drones until we reached the road. I saw bloodied corpses of everyone, from toddlers to old women… killed on the road.” Her son was shot dead halfway to the border. “We had no choice but to keep moving. Many people died on that journey.”
The war in Sudan has spread across most of the country, killing thousands of civilians and creating what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis. International efforts to end the conflict have made little headway. Refugees’ hopes of returning home are fading.
Fatne Adam, 53, has lived in the Metche camp for more than three years. She lost her husband and son to the war: “Both were shot by snipers as we fled. One day I want to go back to Sudan – but only when peace returns. No one can tell me when that will happen.”
