Sudanese Refugees Face Gruelling Wait in Overcrowded S. Sudan Camps

Sudanese drivers rest on May 14, 2023 after transporting evacuees from Sudan into Egypt, in Wadi Karkar village near Aswan © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/File
Sudanese drivers rest on May 14, 2023 after transporting evacuees from Sudan into Egypt, in Wadi Karkar village near Aswan © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/File
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Sudanese Refugees Face Gruelling Wait in Overcrowded S. Sudan Camps

Sudanese drivers rest on May 14, 2023 after transporting evacuees from Sudan into Egypt, in Wadi Karkar village near Aswan © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/File
Sudanese drivers rest on May 14, 2023 after transporting evacuees from Sudan into Egypt, in Wadi Karkar village near Aswan © Khaled DESOUKI / AFP/File

A new truck arrives in the South Sudanese town of Renk, packed with dozens of elderly men, women and children, their exhausted faces betraying the strain of their traumatic journey out of war-ravaged Sudan.

They are among more than half a million people who have crossed the border into South Sudan, which is struggling to accommodate the new arrivals.

Renk is just 10 kilometres (six miles) from Sudan, where fighting broke out in April last year between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Since then, Renk's two UN-run transit centers have been overwhelmed by an uninterrupted influx of frightened people, fleeing for their lives.

The journey is rife with danger, said Fatima Mohammed, a 33-year-old teacher who escaped with her husband and five children from El-Obeid city in central Sudan.

"The bullets were entering our house. We were trapped between crossfire in our own street. So we understood that we needed to leave for the good of our kids," she told AFP, describing the situation in Sudan as "unsustainable".

It took them five days to make their escape, with Sudanese soldiers and RSF fighters "making (it) difficult for us to leave the country".

"They took all our phones at one checkpoint, a lot of our money (at) another one. We saw abuses happening at those checkpoints," she said.

Since the start of the conflict, nearly eight million people, half of them children, have fled Sudan.

Around 560,000 of them have taken refuge in South Sudan, according to the United Nations, which estimates that around 1,500 new arrivals turn up in the country every day.

Many spend months waiting in the transit camps, hopeful that someday soon they will be able to return home.

Iman David fled fighting in Sudan's capital Khartoum with her then three-month-old daughter, leaving her husband behind.

"It was supposed to be a short stay, but I am still stuck here in Renk after seven months," the 20-year-old told AFP.

"My hope is to go back to Khartoum and reunite with my husband but I don't know his fate."

The war has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, according to UN figures.

Around 25 million people, more than half of Sudan's population, need humanitarian assistance, while around 3.8 million children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition, the UN says.

While many in Renk long to return home, others hope to travel onwards to the town of Malakal in Upper Nile state, which is also hosting a huge number of refugees.

At Renk port, hundreds of people lined up under the oppressive glare of the midday sun, waiting hours to hop aboard the metal boats which make the trip at least twice a week.

As she waited, Lina Juna, a 27-year-old mother of four, told AFP her final destination was the South Sudanese capital Juba.

"I have nothing to do in Juba, no family members or friends, no business or work to take care of because I have spent all my life in Sudan," she said.

"But I still expect Juba to be much better than Khartoum," she added, recalling days spent struggling to find food as heavy fighting rocked the city.

Several hours later, she managed to board a boat, one of two carrying some 300 people each.

"Today is a good day for us," said Deng Samson, who works for the International Organization for Migration.

"Some weeks we have seen ourselves completely overwhelmed," he told AFP, adding that the approaching monsoon made him nervous.

"We are truly afraid of what will happen when the rainy season comes, with waters rising from the river and disrupting the normal functioning of the port."

With up to 10 trucks and buses turning up in Renk every day, the UN is trying to mobilize the international community, launching an appeal for $4.1 billion this month to respond to the most urgent humanitarian needs.



Germany Says Sanctions against Syrian War Crimes Suspects Must Stay but People Need Relief

A group of young volunteers paints a mural symbolizing peace on a wall on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. (AP)
A group of young volunteers paints a mural symbolizing peace on a wall on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. (AP)
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Germany Says Sanctions against Syrian War Crimes Suspects Must Stay but People Need Relief

A group of young volunteers paints a mural symbolizing peace on a wall on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. (AP)
A group of young volunteers paints a mural symbolizing peace on a wall on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. (AP)

thGermany’s foreign minister said Sunday that sanctions against Syrian officials responsible for war crimes must remain in place but called for a “smart approach” to provide relief to the Syrian population after last month's overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

Annalena Baerbock spoke to reporters after arriving in Saudi Arabia for a conference on Syria's future attended by top European and Middle Eastern diplomats.

Germany is one of several countries that imposed sanctions on the Assad government over its brutal crackdown on dissent. Those penalties could hinder Syria's recovery from nearly 14 years of civil war that killed an estimated 500,000 people and displaced half the prewar population of 23 million, according to The AP.

“Sanctions against Assad’s henchmen who committed serious crimes during the civil war must remain in place,” Baerbock said. “But Germany proposes to take a smart approach to sanctions, providing rapid relief for the Syrian population. Syrians now need a quick dividend from the transition of power.”

Baerbock announced an additional 50 million euros ($51.2 million) in German aid for food, emergency shelters and medical care, highlighting the ongoing struggles of millions of Syrians displaced by the war.

The sanctions imposed target not only senior government officials, but also the country's oil industry, international money transfers and hundreds of entities and individuals linked to the Assad government, crippling the wider economy.

There are exemptions when it comes to humanitarian aid, but relief organizations have said that overcompliance by financial institutions hinders their operations.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country, which was a strong supporter of the Syrian opposition to Assad, would try to aid Syria in normalizing ties with the international community.

He said it was important to establish “a balance between the expectations of the international community and the realities faced by the new administration in Syria.”

He pledged Turkish support to the new government, especially in combating threats from the ISIS group. “As Türkiye, we are ready to do our part to ease the difficult path ahead for the Syrian people,” he said in comments carried by state-run Anadolu Agency.

The United States has eased some restrictions Last week, the United States eased some of its restrictions on Syria, with the US Treasury issuing a general license, lasting six months, that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions.

The US has also dropped a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of Ahmad al-Sharaa, a Syrian opposition leader formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month. Al-Sharaa was a former senior al-Qaeda militant who broke with the group years ago and has pledged an inclusive Syria that respects the rights of religious minorities.

The opposition factions led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule.

Much of the world severed ties with Assad and imposed sanctions on his government — and its Russian and Iranian allies — over alleged war crimes and the manufacturing of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon, which reportedly generated billions of dollars as packages of the little white pills were smuggled across Syria’s porous borders.

With Assad out of the picture, Syria’s new authorities hope that the international community will pour money into the country to rebuild its battered infrastructure and make its economy viable again.