In the nearly two years since war broke out in Sudan, almost one million people have fled into neighbouring Chad, including more than 720,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 220,000 Chadians who returned home because of the conflict. Nine out of ten people forced into displacement are women and children and many have endured terrible acts of violence, including torture, rape and sexual slavery. Twenty-three international humanitarian organisations operating in eastern Chad warn that the majority of those refugees and returnees do not have access to the protection and education assistance they direly need.
“When we finally arrived in Chad, I was very happy and relieved. For a second, I forgot the fear,” says Nima, a refugee who walked for five days before reaching the border with her three daughters and husband, who had been injured by gunshot in an attack in Al-Fashir in Darfur.
Nima says fear quickly resurfaced: “My six-year-old has nightmares every night. She yells ‘Mommy, they are coming to kill us. We have to run.’ I try to calm them down, but it’s not easy to make them feel safe when I do not feel safe. I too wake up in the middle of the night, my heart beating so fast because I am afraid all the time. I need peace of mind. I do not feel at home here in this camp as long as I am scared.”
More than two-thirds of those arriving in Chad have endured some form of violence during their ordeal, and a third were victims of physical assault, according to protection monitoring data collected in October 2024. That same month, a UN fact-finding mission documented large-scale sexual violence committed by armed actors in Sudan amongst other human rights violations.
“Most refugees cross the border with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and an abundance of harrowing stories,” says Alix Camus, President of the INGO Forum and country director of Acted, which supports the management of the transit site in Adré, near the border.
“Many have to cope with a great deal of trauma which can, and should, be addressed with a bigger focus on child protection, education, mental health as well as treatment and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence. Yet, faced with an emergency crisis of this magnitude on the one hand, and scraps of funding on the other, that type of assistance is placed on the backburner. It should be considered vital seeing what people have gone through,” adds Camus.
Chad hosted around a third of newly displaced Sudanese refugees in 2024, bringing the world’s largest displacement crisis to one of the world’s poorest countries. Since April 2023, humanitarian organisations in Chad, including many local and national responders, have rushed to scale up the response with scant resources and deliver lifesaving aid such as food, water and shelter for Sudanese refugees and Chadian returnees.
Only 30 per cent of the Refugee Response Plan in Chad was funded in 2024, and even food assistance fell drastically short of covering their daily needs. Meanwhile, the protection and education sectors featured the largest gaps of the emergency response.
In some provinces in eastern Chad, more than 8 out of 10 children – refugees, returnees and children from host communities combined – did not attend school in 2024. An assessment carried out by the UNHCR in Wadi Fira in November 2024, with the support of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), revealed a dramatic lack of school infrastructure for both host and displaced populations and a severe shortage of teachers.
“We saw great demand from parents and a real motivation on the part of the children to join the temporary schools built in the displacement camps. Going back to school is ‘make-or-break’ for the children’s present and their future. Despite forced displacement, the horrors experienced and the lingering trauma, education is the most powerful way to reintroduce a reassuring routine in their lives and rebuild hope,” says Mastam Degolmal, NRC’s Education Coordinator in Adre.
Signatory organisations urge for robust regional funding mechanisms to be put in place in order not to leave Sudan’s neighbouring countries to scramble for crumbs as they respond to the fallout of the conflict.
“The world’s largest humanitarian crisis doesn’t stop at Sudan’s borders,” says Amadou Bocoum, Country Director of CARE in Chad. “Despite acute challenges of its own, Chad has welcomed refugees and guaranteed their right to asylum, which is remarkable. The international community must match such a level of compassion and solidarity by urgently ramping up its efforts to properly and adequately assist those who have survived.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Norwegian Refugee Council.