An NPR team morning edition visited makeshift refugee homes in Camp Adré, Chad, near the border with Sudan.
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An NPR team morning edition visited makeshift refugee homes in Camp Adré, Chad, near the border with Sudan.
HJ May/NPR
ADRE, Chad — The roads are unpaved. Children play with old tires. And the adults try to understand what happens next. A refugee camp in Chad, near the border with Sudan, is a clear sign of a growing humanitarian crisis affecting the region.
At least a million people have fled Sudan after a new conflict erupted between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces earlier this year. At least 400,000 of them have landed in Chad – many of them in the town of Adré.
“Today I saw people on the verge of death, including young children,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during a visit to the camp on Wednesday.
The flow of new refugees arriving in Adré is not slowing down. And with fighting continuing in western Sudan, people don’t have many other viable options.
“I saw dozens of displaced people from Sudan crossing the border into Chad,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “Women with nothing but babies on their backs.”
The refugee camp in the Chadian town of Adré stretches for hundreds of meters filled with small dwellings and huts.
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The refugee camp in the Chadian town of Adré stretches for hundreds of meters filled with small dwellings and huts.
HJ May/NPR
But they are the ones who were lucky enough to make it out alive.
But once they arrive in Chad, they face new challenges. It is difficult to find shelter, water and food.
Over the months, Adré transformed into an endless stretch of small dwellings and cabins, some more sophisticated than others. It is not uncommon to see twigs or other small branches holding together a particular configuration.
Stretching for several hundred meters, Adré camp is one soccer field after another for the refugees.
“It’s heartbreaking to see children suffer because of senseless conflict,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
As a UN Security Council briefing last month showed, women have also suffered sexual violence during the conflict.
“The United States strongly condemns the widespread conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Sudan, which credible sources, including victims, have attributed to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their allied militias,” the statement said. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller in a press release.
“The numerous reports of rape, gang rape and other forms of gender-based violence against women and girls in West Darfur and other areas are deeply disturbing. These acts of brutality contribute to an emerging pattern of targeted ethnic violence.
These are not the only problems that volunteers and other camp members have to deal with. They have to deal with everything from racial tensions to medical issues and food shortages.
A visit to a makeshift medical center showed malnourished children, some of them so weak they couldn’t even cry or scream.
US Ambassador to the UN Thomas-Greenfield hopes that media coverage of the dire situation in the refugee camp, which is expected to intensify before the end of the year, will heighten awareness of the crisis and potentially lead to additional humanitarian assistance.
But there is a risk. US Secretary of State Antony Blicken’s visit to Kyiv on the same day that Thomas-Greenfield was meeting with refugees illustrates that there are many conflicts on a global scale. And this large number of conflicts makes it even more difficult for governments to decide which ADRE, Chad humanitarian crisis is a priority and should be supported with taxpayers’ money.
The broadcast interview was conducted by Milton Guevara.
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