Darfur mothers flee hunger under Chad’s trees
Al Jazeera
Thousands of Sudanese women and children fleeing RSF attacks in North Darfur are now living under trees at the Iridimi refugee camp in eastern Chad, facing severe shortages of food, water, and medicine. The June 15 attack burned 10 villages, and resources are nearly exhausted as camps receive up to 80 new families each day.
Under a lone tree at the Iridimi refugee camp in eastern Chad, Thuraya Mukhtar, 45, sits quietly trying to piece together the lives she lost after war ripped away her home. Just a week earlier, thunderous explosions and relentless gunfire forced her to flee her home in the Orchi area of western Sudan.
“I left without knowing I would never return. I hugged my children and ran, with fire behind me and bullets overhead,” Thuraya told Al Jazeera, her voice trembling but held in check. “We haven’t eaten for two days; my children are crying from hunger. I don’t know what I will feed them tomorrow, or where we will sleep.”
The brutal attack launched by the paramilitary RSF on June 15 in the Orchi area, part of Um Baru in North Darfur, burned 10 villages to the ground, looted markets, and swept away livestock and people’s property. A week after the disaster, thousands of families remain outdoors, sleeping on the barren ground and sheltering under trees insufficient to shield them from the scorching daytime heat or the harsh cold at night.
“We walked a long way before reaching the town of Tine in Chad. Along the road, we ate leaves and drank polluted water we found in puddles,” Hawa Adam, 35, another mother from Orchi, shared. “Food is almost nonexistent. What we had was either stolen by the RSF or burned in our homes.”
According to Adam Abakar, a newly displaced person, drones still constantly patrol the skies over the area, targeting remaining water sources, livestock, and homes. “We cannot return to the village. The drones hover overhead every day and target any movement, as if to drive us away from our last shelter.”
The refugee crisis is overwhelming regional humanitarian networks. Mustafa Barah, head of the Darfur Genocide Victims Committee, said camps in eastern Chad are receiving up to 80 families a day. “They arrive exhausted, without food or water, some carrying sick children on their shoulders.”
Mohammed Safi, communications official for the Tine Emergency Room, told Al Jazeera that resources are nearly depleted. “In just the last two days, we have received more than 7,000 displaced families. They all urgently need tents, blankets, food, and clean water. The situation calls for an emergency intervention.”
On the government side, Salah Rassas Adam Tour, a member of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, accused the RSF of pursuing a “systematic policy” to change the region’s demographic structure. “Targeting civilians and forcing them to flee is not a tactical mistake; it is a systematic policy of the RSF,” he said, calling for international intervention.
Against this backdrop, a joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) issued on June 17 warned that Sudan faces the world’s worst hunger crisis, with 19.5 million people in severe food insecurity and famine threatening 14 areas in Darfur. For mothers like Thuraya and Hawa, the official statements are statistics; the reality is a daily struggle for a meal under sparse trees while waiting for international action.
