"Our Future is Lost": A Year of War Forces Thousands to Flee
On a dusty road near Adré, a critical crossing at the Sudan-Chad border, 38-year-old Buthaina sits in a circle with other women, their children huddled beside them. None of them have any possessions. Buthaina, along with her six children, fled the war-ravaged city of el-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region, located over 480 kilometers (300 miles) away. They had no choice but to leave when food and water ran out.
“We left everything behind. We just had to run,” Buthaina shares with the BBC. “I didn’t want to go—my kids were excelling in school, and we had a happy life.”
Sudan’s civil war, igniting in April last year, has pitted the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) against their former allies, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in a brutal battle for control. At the heart of the conflict are disagreements over plans for a transition to civilian rule. The devastating war has already claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions, and driven vast regions of the country to the brink of famine. Humanitarian groups warn that Sudan could face the worst famine globally unless aid efforts are drastically increased.
The BBC witnessed the dire circumstances in camps along Sudan’s western border and in Port Sudan, the country’s primary aid hub, located 1,600 kilometers away on the eastern coast.
A Symbol of Political and Humanitarian Collapse
Adré, once a closed-off crossing, has become a powerful representation of Sudan’s catastrophic situation. The border was shut for months until recently, with only a few aid trucks managing to get through. Although it has since reopened, relief workers fear that aid coming in now may be too late for many. Daily, Sudanese refugees—primarily women and children—flood into Chad, with mothers carrying malnourished children on their backs.
Upon arrival, they rush to a water tank supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP), one of several UN agencies sounding the alarm on Sudan’s deepening crisis. Nearby, refugees have cobbled together a makeshift camp from scraps of wood, plastic, and cloth.
As rain begins to pour, the situation turns dire. “The shelters won’t withstand the downpours,” explains Ying Hu, an associate reporting officer with the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. “Rainfall not only brings disease, but it also causes flooding that can cut off access to aid for days.”
The Race Against Famine
One area, Zamzam camp in Darfur, has already officially been declared in famine, although the true scale of the crisis is likely far worse. The WFP managed to deliver over 200,000 tonnes of food between April 2023 and July 2024, yet this falls tragically short of what’s needed. Both the SAF and RSF have been accused of obstructing aid, with militias reportedly stealing or damaging food deliveries and the army blocking access to areas controlled by the RSF, including much of Darfur.
While the SAF recently permitted aid convoys to move through Adré, after delays of up to six weeks in Port Sudan, the situation remains critical.
A Growing Humanitarian Disaster
In May, Human Rights Watch accused the RSF and allied militias of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity targeting ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab groups in Darfur. The RSF denied involvement, downplaying the violence as part of an ongoing “tribal conflict.”
During a visit to a displacement camp in Port Sudan, survivors shared harrowing stories of abuse. One woman recounted being captured while fleeing Omdurman, near the capital. She described how her two-year-old son was taken to another room while she was repeatedly raped. “It happened so often that I would focus on his cries,” she said, fighting back tears.
Another woman, Safaa, fled Omdurman with her six children but left her husband behind. “He couldn’t escape. The RSF targets men trying to flee,” she explains. “My children ask every day, ‘Where is Baba?’ But I haven’t heard from him since January.”
For Safaa, the future feels bleak. “What future? It’s gone. We had a home, my kids went to school, and now we live in a tent,” she says, her voice heavy with despair.
The International Community Must Act
The BBC’s visit coincided with a trip by UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed, who sought to highlight the crisis to world leaders. Despite global attention shifting to other conflicts like those in Ukraine and Gaza, she urged the international community to act before it’s too late.
“There’s fatigue because so many crises are happening at once,” Mohamed says. “But these people aren’t just numbers. When you meet them, you realize that if we don’t step up, they’ll die.”
The message from Sudan is clear: without immediate and substantial intervention, the consequences will be catastrophic.
