We must shine a light on Sudan and bring an end to this misery
Tufail Hussain in an IDP camp in Port Sudan. Photo: Islamic Relief
Tufail Hussain, Director of Islamic Relief UK, has been at the forefront of calls for more media coverage of Sudan. Here, he reflects on his recent visit to the country.
I’ve been a humanitarian for 20 years now and have been on the ground during humanitarian crises in places like Afghanistan after the Taliban take-over, Yemen during the food crisis, and more, but nothing has shaken me to my core than what I saw in Sudan this autumn.
I visited refugee camps in Port Sudan and Gedaref, supposedly the safest areas of the country. What I experienced I will never forget. Gedaref province neighbours the capital Khartoum, the epicentre of violence, and is the frontline of the worst IDP (Internally Displaced Person) crisis in the world, becoming a city of tears.
At one camp in Gedaref, the stench alone knocked the wind out of me. I saw 20,000 people living in one warehouse. Sleeping on the cold floor, no beds, no privacy, very little sanitation facilities. There was a single water point where women, children and men queued for hours to get whatever little water they could. The risk of disease being spread was so high I was forbidden from walking around the camp.
The community leaders pleaded with us for whatever support we could provide
Their gaunt faces told the story of the countless people who now relied so heavily on them, whilst the leaders themselves were suffering from the same hunger, receiving just one meal a day. The generosity to the newly arrived displaced families from both local government and families in the community was astounding, but they had been simply overwhelmed by the numbers and their own lack of resources.
The local and international NGOs who are present are doing everything they can too, but the lack of funding and the restriction of aid and food trucks by the warring parties are simply too severe, leaving them to face impossible decisions.
This conflict has torn the country apart
The conflict between the Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has torn the country asunder. Stories of human rights abuses are rife; I heard harrowing reports of the brutal killing of civilians and the rape of women.
Khartoum, the historic capital, has been all but destroyed, few homes are left un-pillaged, entire villages have been wiped out, and over 11m people have been forced to flee. This is the equivalent of the entire population of London and Birmingham losing their homes and being driven across the country.
Sudan faces a huge healthcare crisis
Aisha, a mother who was now living with just three of her children in a tent bare of possessions told me of the terrifying heart defect she was facing. There was no healthcare to be found on site, leaving her in fear of dying and orphaning her children.
She had already endured a perilous journey over hundreds of miles to Port Sudan from Khartoum, leaving behind her eldest son and her husband, whose severe asthma prevented him from making the journey.
She later learnt that the RSF house arrest on Khartoum’s remaining residents meant her husband had no access to healthcare – he died as a result. She has had no news of her son since leaving Khartoum. The violence she witnessed in the capital was horrific. Her neighbours’ homes were destroyed, she saw people killed, her family’s possessions were pillaged in front of them.
Hunger and disease run unchecked throughout Sudan
The conflict has created the world’s worst hunger crisis, which has stripped Aisha’s access to food to feed herself and her family. The whole family had just a small bowl of lentils and half a plate of pasta to share between them, twice a day (for families in camps in Gedaref, they only had half of this). Hauntingly the early signs of malnutrition in some of the children in the camp were brutally visible.
Hunger and disease now run unchecked throughout the country, killing even more than the brutal violence of war. 25.6m people, half the population, are now food insecure, meaning they do not know when their next meal will come, if it comes at all. Worse still, famine has reared its ugly head in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Families are forced to make perilous journeys to save their lives
I met a disabled man who fled Khartoum under the cover of darkness alongside his son with severe learning difficulties who was also physically disabled and in a wheelchair. In the capital, armed men did not allow people to leave their homes, meaning many starved once food ran out. Rather than choosing to stay home and starve, he had made the hazardous decision to risk violence and broke house arrest to save his family from hunger.
He travelled for over 1,000 miles on makeshift crutches, little more than sticks, to safety in Port Sudan, leaving him in severe pain. Along the way he told me he was arrested and detained by the RSF for six days, during which he was not given a single morsel of food. Nothing.
We must shine a light on Sudan and bring an end to this misery
Sudan has been embroiled in a brutal civil war for 18 months now, and with pitifully little international intervention, there are no signs of cessation of violence. The world may have decided to ignore Sudan, but that does not mean the conflict will go away. Future generations will not forgive us if we leave the Sudanese people to their intense suffering. I will never forget the desperate and hungry faces I saw but it’s the lack of international response that shocked me like nothing else. The Sudanese people must not be allowed to suffer in darkness, we must shine a light and help bring an end to this misery.
Tufail Hussain is director of Islamic Relief UK
This opinion piece first appeared in The Telegraph
