Sudan: Thousands cling to a fragile hope in makeshift tents

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The Tawila camp for internally displaced in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region is home to more than half a million people who live in makeshift huts of sticks, hay and plastic sheeting.

Some families have survived in those harsh conditions for months.

Among them, 17-year-old Doha and her brothers and sisters reached Tawila after a three-day long journey from El Fasher by foot and donkey cart, exhausted and frightened. Home in the key Darfur city had become too dangerous. Food was scarce. Health facilities were destroyed. School, once the centre of Doha’s days, was no more.

“This girl caught our eye because she was smiling,” Eva Hinds, spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Sudan told UN News. “And she so desperately wanted to speak English. I’m always so struck when I see someone who is beaming in the middle of such a hardship environment.”

‘Not giving up’

Her first name, Doha, means “morning” in Arabic and is often used colloquially to refer to the period from dawn to sunrise.

“The light in the eyes of this girl showed she lives to her name,” said Ms. Hinds.

Before the war broke out, Doha was studying English and was keen to know if there were opportunities to continue learning English in Tawila. She told Ms. Hinds she’d like to teach others at some point.

“I’m always struck by how people are resilient and they’re not giving up when the world is stuck against them,” said Ms. Hinds.

Millions flee violence

According to a recent report from the UN Human Rights Office based on victims and witnesses’ testimonies, more than 6,000 people were killed in three days when Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the city of El Fasher last year. The key city of Darfur came under 18 months of sustained siege. This is where some of the most harrowing stories have emerged out of this brutal conflict.

“There are millions of children who’ve had to flee their homes several times, not only once or twice, but more than that,” underlined Ms. Hinds.

These children end up in camps for internally displaced, which are very difficult places to grow up in, with cramped spaces and very limited access to safe water, food and opportunities to continue learning.

“Their sense of safety has been shaken as they’ve been forced to flee and they’ve seen things that many children have never seen and should never see,” she said.

Their routines, friendships and sense of security have been completely upended as they struggle with the most basic things, such as getting food and enough water to drink and wash. 

Skyrocketing needs, declining funding

On the ground, UNICEF and its partners provide different types of support, from healthcare to nutrition, and also safe spaces where heavily traumatised children can start receiving psychosocial services so they can start going through their traumatic experiences amid a sense of normalcy for the first time. It’s a space where they can play, be with friends and start learning.

But, Sudan is an immense country, with around 34 million people who need humanitarian assistance, and needs keep growing. This is a challenge for humanitarians operating on the ground. The dramatic situation for children is worsening in conflict zones, where the risks of violence, including sexual violence, are escalating.

UNICEF works to identify and support children, looks for the adults in their families to reunite them and offers them refuge if needed.

“With regard to sexual violence, it is essential to provide safe spaces, especially for women and girls,” according to UNICEF.

“Needs are skyrocketing and the funding is dwindling,” the agency’s spokesperson said. “It’s a very difficult equation to make, and unfortunately, it’s often the most vulnerable that pay the heaviest price: the children.”

Hope remains last refuge

Sudan is also one of the countries that practices female genital mutilation (FGM). UNICEF and the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, have a joint programme on the elimination of the practice, which the agencies continue to implement despite the challenges of a country at war.

“We foster girls clubs as part of the programming,” Ms. Hinds explained. “These clubs are safe spaces where girls and adolescents come together, where they learn. It’s a place where they can support one another and develop a sense of identity and belonging and this is very much about the positive social norms. These clubs also play a critical role in encouraging girls to stay in school, complete their studies and challenge harmful practices, including female genital mutilation.”

In camps for displaced people, education and basic services provide children with a fragile sense of safety and stability. “Education is a lifeline,” UNICEF insists.

Despite ongoing violence in Darfur and Kordofan, hope remains the last refuge for thousands of children like Doha in Tawila, who dream of a peaceful Sudan and the chance to reclaim a stolen childhood.