At this transit camp on the Chad, Sudan border
, women hand out bowls of food to orphaned children
. They have arrived from Al Fasher, the site
of a recent violent takeover by paramilitary forces in Sudan
. Najwa Issa Adam is one of the volunteers,
a recent refugee herself. We're living off the charity
from people in Tine as well as people from Sudan
. Adam buys and prepares food for newly arriving refugee
families using money donated by other refugees living in Tine
. Youth here participate with me in helping people.
We are around 6 or 7 people and we want
to help our brothers. There is little international humanitarian
aid available to families arriving at the border town.
Of the handful of NGOs working in Tina, none
provide durable shelter, not even tents, only plastic
tarps. Doctors Without Borders or MSF, runs a
clinic in the camp. It says about 1 in
4 children are malnourished and that the situation is getting
worse with families fleeing Al Fasher. The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees says it only has 38% of the
estimated funds it needs to respond to the Sudanese refugee
crisis in Chad, and that US cuts in foreign
aid are a major reason for the gap in funding
. UN agencies have chosen to focus the limited aid
on camps farther inland, which are safer places for
refugees to shelter. MSF estimates that about 180 people
are crossing the border into Tina each day. Ibrahim
Mohammed Ishaq arrived at the camp with his wife and
their 3 and 5 year old daughters. They had
been living in the Abu Shuk camp on the north
side of Al Fasher. There were a lot of
problems in Al-Fashir, and it's sad because there was
daily shelling, killing, and displacement, and also
there was hunger. Many people were eating animal feed
. Anyway, thank God we tried, and God
saved us, and we got out safely. Al
Fasher fell to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary in October
after 18 months of violence. It marked a turning
point in the 2.5 year war between the militia and
the Sudanese army. Ishaq and his family fled by
donkey the day before the RSF swept in. Fighters
chased them, he said, and he saw more
than 4 of his relatives shot dead. After crossing
the border, the family stopped at the mobile clinic
where a nurse gave medicine to the 3-year-old. They
were handed a temporary tarp, water jug, teapot
, and soap at a UNHCR checkpoint. The family
was then driven to a transit site about 4 miles
away from the border, joining some 1500 other refugees
awaiting transfer to camps farther inland.