Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance as the rainy season begins. With thousands of refugees having crossed the border, they now face the risk of isolation, disease, and malnutrition.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warns that the impending arrival of the rains in Chad’s eastern Sila region and other border areas will have devastating humanitarian consequences. As wadis and roads fill with water and flood, refugees and host communities will become completely isolated, cut off from all services and assistance.
There are also concerns over the increased risk of waterborne and infectious diseases due to poor access to clean water and sanitation services. Humanitarian organizations are working to provide aid and relocate people far from insecure border areas before the rains hit, but aid is visibly falling behind.
“Many refugees want to move away from the border area, but there is not enough space for them to relocate,” says Audrey van der Schoot, MSF head of mission in Chad. “At the same time, there are others who wish to remain where they are, in addition to continuing arrivals from Sudan,” she says.
Over 100,000 people have already crossed the border into Chad since the start of the fighting in Sudan. MSF fears that with the coming rainfall, people in this border area will be trapped and forgotten, with no access to critical lifesaving services or information on where to access them. People may be left to make unimaginable choices to stay without any assistance or to return to Sudan, where they would be exposed to more violence and physical and psychological harm.
Nearly 30,000 refugees and returnees in the Sila region in eastern Chad are receiving limited and slow humanitarian assistance. The lack of shelter, water, and insufficient food has forced many refugees to turn to other refugee families or Chadian hosts for support.
To address this, MSF has started an emergency project in cooperation with health authorities in the Sila region, near the Chad-Sudan border. Through mobile clinics, MSF teams provide medical and preventive care in Andressa and Mogororo refugee sites, screening and treating acute malnutrition in children, sexual and reproductive healthcare, and referrals to the MSF-supported Deguessa health centre or Koukou hospital for specialized healthcare.
While running mobile clinics, MSF teams have also heard disturbing accounts from refugees who fled from the Sudanese locality of Foro Baranga and surrounding villages, south of West Darfur.
Survivors describe their experiences under a state of shock, having been exposed to extreme levels of violence, including reported incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, torture, kidnapping, forced recruitment, looting, blackmail, as well as property destruction. Those fleeing the conflict in Sudan have also faced threats, while others have been made to pay so they could enter Chad.
MSF teams have also taken care of over 70 injured Sudanese in our health facility in Ouaddai’s Adre region. Most of the wounded arrived with severe gunshot wounds sustained in the clashes in West Darfur. Many of them were left behind, unable to travel to Chad or receive medical treatment.
“We are facing a crisis on top of a crisis. People are trickling in whenever the conflict intensifies in Sudan, with more expected to cross into Chad as the fighting continues unabated,” says van der Schoot.
An urgent scale-up of humanitarian programming and funding for refugees from Sudan is needed, but the needs of the host community and other refugees in eastern Chad should be prioritized equally in this humanitarian response.
