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.



‘Grave-Like’ Shelter to Tackle Winter, War in Gaza

Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
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‘Grave-Like’ Shelter to Tackle Winter, War in Gaza

Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)

Amid freezing temperatures and heavy rain in war-torn central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a semblance of comfort.
In the clay soil of the encampment area where his family had been displaced by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly 2 meters deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain.
“I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said.
“So I dug 90 centimeters, it was okay and I felt the space get a little bigger,” he said from the shelter while his children played in a small swing he attached to the plank that serves as a beam for the tarpaulin.
In time, Obaid managed to dig 180 centimeters deep and then lined the bottom with mattresses, at which point, he said, “it felt comfortable, sort of.”
With old flour sacks that he filled with sand, he paved the entry to the shelter to keep it from getting muddy, while he carved steps into the side of the pit, AFP reported.
The clay soil is both soft enough to be dug without power tools and strong enough to stand on its own.
'Freezing to death'
For warmth, Obaid dug a chimney-like structure and fireplace in which he burns discarded paper and cardboard.
In front of the fireplace, his children rub their hands together, trying to find some warmth.
The pit provides some protection from Israeli air strikes, but Obaid said he feared the clay soil could collapse should a strike land close enough.
“If an explosion happened around us and the soil collapsed, this shelter would become our grave,” he said.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months.
The UN’s satellite center (UNOSAT) determined in September 2024 that 66% of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed by the war, in which Israel has made extensive use of air strikes as it fights Hamas.
For Palestinian civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps, mostly in central and southern Gaza.
Shortages caused by the complete blockade of the coastal territory mean that construction materials are scarce, and the displaced must make do with what is at hand.
On top of the hygiene problems created by the lack of proper water and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into the camps, winter weather has brought its own set of hardships.
On Thursday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned that eight newborns died of hypothermia and 74 children died “amid the brutal conditions of winter” in 2025.
“We enter this New Year carrying the same horrors as the last — there’s been no progress and no solace. Children are now freezing to death,” UNRWA’s spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said.
More than 45,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.