Sudan War: UNHCR Chief Stresses Need To Help Refugee Hosts In Chad

Chad hosts 1.3 million forcibly displaced people, according to the UN agency, UNHCR despite it being one of the world’s poorest countries. More than half of these vulnerable individuals are Sudanese who’ve fled the fighting between rival militaries which erupted in April 2023.

Speaking from the Chadian border with Sudan, Mr. Grandi described the continued fighting as “absurd”.

He also condemned the ongoing “vicious human rights abuses” against civilians before calling for far greater international support for Sudanese refugees and their Chadian hosts.

The arrivals are mostly women and children – some of whom have been crawling, exhausted across the border with barely any possessions, according to aid teams on the ground.

Funding crisis

The UN agency stressed once again that the crisis rocking humanitarian funding globally has only made matters worse.

Large cuts to overseas aid provision in the United States and elsewhere have made it impossible to pay teachers, the UN agency said.

Clinics and schools that protect women and children from violence and exploitation have been forced to shut down.

Some 8,500 displaced children in Chad are at risk of losing access to secondary education this year. If the cuts carry on into next year, more than 155,000 could be impacted.

Lost futures

“Children have dropped out of school," said Abdelrahim Abdelkarim, headteacher of a secondary school in Farchana refugee settlement in eastern Chad.

"Many students will take dangerous and illegal migration routes, attempting to cross the sea. Some may drown while others end up working in gold mines," he warned.

High Commissioner for Refugees Grandi has previously described the funding shortfall as “a crisis of responsibility” in which “the cost of inaction will be measured in suffering, instability and lost futures".

'Siege-like conditions'

And as funding dries up for Sudan, relief teams are scaling back or withdrawing – leaving vulnerable communities to fend for themselves as their homes turn to rubble.

Today, after nearly two years of fighting, attacks against civilians, displacement, and climate shocks have left nearly two-thirds of Sudan's 50 million people in need of aid and protection.

Speaking from the capital Khartoum, recently liberated from the opposition Rapid Support Forces by the Sudanese Armed Forces, Mohammed Refaat, Sudan Chief of Mission at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that he has seen the impact of insufficient funding in just the last few days.

"The people who were in these areas have been trapped in siege-like conditions with no escape, no hope and often forced to face unspeakable abuse," Mr. Refaat said, describing the destruction and suffering in the country as "immeasurable".

Little access to basic services

The power struggle between Sudan's rival generals — Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan — has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.

Both sides have been accused of atrocities and rights violations, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has previously reported.

Many families have returned to the capital now that the Sudanese Armed Forces are in control, but with little access to basic services, UN agencies have urged support to ensure relief.

Yet the crisis is far from over – and refugees continue to face hunger.

UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has projected that more than three million children under the age of five will likely suffer from acute malnutrition this year.

In Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur, the crisis is pushing families to eat what is normally used as animal feed. Children also lack water, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

People fleeing insecurity in Blue Nile state in southwest Sudan, are moving towards state capital Ed Damazine, with clashes and access blocked hampering relief efforts, OCHA reported.

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