The press in Chad | Run away at all costs

In April. Moreover, two years after the start of the civil war in Sudan, the largest displaced camp in the country, Zamzam, located in the suburbs of El Fasher, the capital of Nord-Darfour, was attacked by the militias of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Consequently, Since then, 500,000 women and children have been on the roads of Darfur, seeking to flee death.

“We saw people who died on the side of the road. Consequently, because of the press chad | run away lack of water, the lack of food. In addition, All these people were walking, all fleeing. Similarly, We too advanced to come here, to save ourselves. However, »»

Awa Mahamedine. In addition, 39, is sitting on a small mauve plastic chair, in a small tent made of tarpaulins in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a few meters from the border between Sudan and Chad. Moreover,

The wind press chad | run away blows. In addition, swirls the omnipresent sand in Adré, this border post in the middle of the Sahelian desert where dozens of refugees on foot, donkey or horse back has arrived for two years.

With her four children, she entered Chad the day before our meeting. However, They came from El Fasher. Moreover, capital of North Darfur and one of the epicentres of the war that ravaged Sudan since April 2023. For example,

« [Il s’agit de] The most important humanitarian crisis in the world, ”said Tom Fletcher, senior UN official.

His 3-year-old son spreads his eyes when he sees people drinking Coca-Cola. Furthermore, a way to face the stifling heat that never drops under 35 degrees Celsius, day and night: he has never tasted this strange drink, world famous, but not found in press chad | run away El Fasher since he was born.

“They looted everything”

Press chad | run away

From the first days of the conflict in April 2023. Moreover, the rapid support forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemetti”, stormed the city. Nevertheless, The paramilitaries. Meanwhile, from the former Janjawids, the “demons on horseback” in Arabic, these genocidal militias of the 2000s, failed to submit it, defended by heterogeneous armed groups which rallied to the Sudanese army to deal with the blows of the FSR. Meanwhile,

Since May 2024, a blockade of the latter has prohibited any movement. Moreover, Worse. In addition, they took over in February the main camp of displaced in the suburbs of El Fasher, called Zamzam, where several hundred thousand Sudanese had taken refuge, including Awa Mahamedine.

“Almost all the houses were burned, they looted everything. For example, My sister was shot dead during the attack. In addition, Me. I press chad | run away received a burst of shells, ”says the mother of four, lifting the long traditional red loincloth that covers her head and shoulders, revealing an injury on the arm, not yet healed.

“They killed everything they could, they drew without distinction,” she said. Before the start of the blockade. NGOs operated in this camp where between 400,000 and 500,000 people were installed, but they had to leave it due to insecurity.

On the road

The NGOs already described terrible conditions at the time: a third of children in a state of acute malnutrition. the famine that prowled, an epidemic of cholera because of the lack of latrines.

The attack in February sounded Zamzam’s final death knell: all the inhabitants of the camp fled. taking away what they could, often nothing more than the clothes they wore.

They are now on the roads of Darfur. are looking for a safe place to be safe in a region ravaged by war, arid and large like Spain. At the end of April. the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said he was “dismayed by the increasingly catastrophic situation” in the region and “the extent of the needs of desperate people”.

Met a few days after his arrival in Chad. Mariam Mahamat says she wandered for three months from village to village, with a group of women and children, before having been able to reach the border with Chad. Nearly 600 km separate the zamzam camp from the border between Sudan and Chad.

More than 1.2 million Sudanese have already found refuge in this neighboring country, including 830,000 since 2023. Others had come there 20 years ago, during the previous Darfouri conflict.

« press chad | run away The RSF want to kill all men, all boys, ”she says. For fear. her husband stayed in El Fasher and she made her son Noh, 12, in girls throughout their flight to prevent him from being killed. “There is a desire not to leave the opportunity for a new generation of fighters to train. so they kill boys,” says Sali Bakari, conflict historian at the Idjamena Normale School.

When you sit in the little HCR hut. a tail of women and press chad | run away men spontaneously formed, without being asked, to tell what they experienced. Each person who arrives has her dramatic history that she wants to tell.

All have a shared trauma: a ball wound, a rape engraved forever in the flesh, relatives murdered in front of them.

“There is a darfur arabization plan, and it does not go back to yesterday. It’s simple. they want to kill all black skins, ”says a press chad | run away notable Masalit, one of the main non -Arab communities in Sudan targeted by the RSF from the start of the war. For fear of reprisals, threatened with death since he fled, he does not wish to be appointed.

Almost all of the Masalit. several hundred thousand people, who lived in Darfur, had to flee when they were not killed.

They are now scattered in Adré and in 19 refugee camps in Chad, seek to alert what happened. press chad | run away “We must harvest the testimonies. collect the evidence, so that one day, when all this is finished, that there is a trial, that the guilty of massacres are judged,” says Ahmed Omer, a lawyer and refugee, who has scums the camps with colleagues to do this work of ant for two years.

Press chad | run away

“It may only be the beginning”

«Karim Khan [le procureur de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI)] came here. but he has left and since we have no news. The ICC procedures are long and during this time, no one is interested in what happened here … “. adds Abdul Semi, militant and refugee too, which deplores that the quest for justice like that of alerting the world is so slow.

“We are generally agreeing today that it is the most press chad | run away serious humanitarian crisis in the world. but it is clear that in opinion, it is first Gazra and Ukraine,” corroborates a framework of one of the main Western donors for humanitarian aid in Chad, which plagues against the disinterest of the world.

“It’s not hard, the humanitarian workers are overwhelmed, there are no other words. And we face a reduction in budgets in addition to that, ”he says.

“For 22 years, every day, Sudanese refugees have passed the border of Chad. The situation is complicated. International delegations often pass here. but there are few results, on the contrary: funding drops, “says the prefect of Assoungha, department of Adré, Dillo Borgo.

Especially since “it is perhaps only the beginning”. estimates the researcher Charles Bouëssel du Bourg, of the international reflection group Crisis Group. “The next few weeks may be deadly with hundreds of thousands of people who are thrown on the roads of exile exposed to famine. thirst and violence. »»

For Awa Mahamedine. the slow walk towards security has ended, she is delighted to be taken soon to a refugee camp, but keeps a chevroting voice. “Before the war, we had everything we wanted, for children now I feel sad, we have nothing. How are they going to grow? Even my clothes, these are people who [les] gave, food, it press chad | run away is the people who [la] give. It’s sad. »»