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Atlantic
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
The Crisis of American Leadership Reaches an Empty Desert
In Tiné, a barren desert town in eastern Chad, the first humanitarian crisis of the post-American world is now unfolding. Thousands of people fleeing the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region have recently arrived there after enduring long journeys in relentless, 100-degree heat. Many have nothing—they report being beaten, robbed, or raped along the way—and almost nothing awaits them in Tiné. Due in part to the Trump administration's devastating cuts to foreign aid, only a skeleton staff of international humanitarian workers are on hand to receive them. There are shortages of food, water, medicine, and shelter in Tiné, and few resources to move people anywhere else. Several months ago, I was reporting in Sudan with the photographer Lynsey Addario. She recently returned to the region and spent several days photographing and speaking with some of the people who are streaming into Tiné. According to aid workers on the ground, more than 30,000 people have arrived there since regional fighting intensified in mid-April, and more than 3,500 are now arriving every day. The photos below capture the desperation of people with nowhere to go, the absence of infrastructure to help them, the desolation of the empty desert. Most of the people in Tiné and nearby towns are coming from Zamzam, a famine-stricken camp for displaced people in North Darfur. Aid trucks carrying food have long had difficulty reaching Zamzam, thanks to ongoing violence, bad roads, and the Sudanese government's reluctance to let international organizations operate in areas controlled by its rivals. Over the past few weeks, the Rapid Support Forces, the militia that is the Sudanese army's main antagonist, raised the stakes further. The RSF tightened its siege of El-Fasher, the largest city in North Darfur, and began shelling Zamzam itself. The core of the RSF consists of Arabic-speaking nomads, once known as the Janjaweed, who have long been in conflict with the non-Arab farmers in this part of Sudan. Their lethal rivalry is not a religious dispute—both sides are overwhelmingly Muslim—and the ethnic differences are blurry. Nevertheless, refugees in Tiné say RSF soldiers are interrogating people escaping from Zamzam and El-Fasher, and murdering men who look 'African' instead of 'Arab,' who speak the wrong language or who come from the wrong tribe. 'If your language is Arabic, they will let you go,' a woman named Fatima Suleiman recounted. Those who did not speak it, she said, were murdered on the spot. Her dark-skinned son, Ahmed, a student who knows some English, was spared because he speaks Arabic too, though his friends were not as fortunate. He watched them get gunned down. In theory, the Trump administration still supports emergency humanitarian aid. But in practice, the cuts to logistics and personnel, the abrupt changes to payments, and the associated chaos have hampered all of the international humanitarian organizations working in Tiné and everywhere else. The Chadian Red Cross lacks transport for the wounded. The World Food Program's supplies are unreliable because support systems have been cut. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is cutting staff due to budget constraints. Jean-Paul Habamungu Samvura, who represents UNHCR in eastern Chad, said that in his 20-year career, he could not recall refugees ever being offered so little. 'Our big donor is the U.S.,' Samvura said. But in February, UNHCR was instructed to alter its services. 'Things we are used to seeing as lifesaving activity, like providing shelter, are no longer considered lifesaving activity,' he explained. That leaves his team with an unsolvable problem: 'Where to put people at least to give them a bit of shading.' Some of his staff have been told that their jobs will end as soon as June, but the crisis will not end in June. Local Sudanese groups, part of a mutual-aid movement called Emergency Response Rooms, are collecting donations from overseas and have begun offering meals to refugees, as they do all over Sudan. But if the number of displaced people continues to grow as the scale of the disaster expands, these volunteers will also need more resources, if only to ensure that everyone in Tiné eats a meal every day. Eyewitnesses report people dying of thirst on the way to Tiné, and malnourished children arriving among the refugees. This is a dramatic moment in a devastating war. More people have been displaced by violence in Sudan than in Ukraine and Gaza combined. Statements about Sudan are regularly made at the UN and in other international forums. And yet the people in these photographs seem to have been abandoned in an empty landscape. As the United States withdraws and international institutions decay, their ordeal may be a harbinger of what is to come.
Irish Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on the crisis in Sudan and Chad: a distracted world looks away
Even before Donald Trump's outrageous cuts to US humanitarian aid programmes, in Sudan and Chad the World Food Programme was trying to cope with a 40 per cent drop in funding. One of the worst humanitarian crises in the world has now been plunged deeper into an unimaginable hell. Since April 2023, 150,000 people have died in Sudan's bitter civil war between two heavily armed, pitiless militias funded by regional powers. Twelve million have now been displaced from their homes. Eight million are at risk of starvation. Of the displaced, 760,000 have crossed the border into the Ouddai province in east Chad and turned the small border town of Adre and its unofficial transit camp into Chad's third largest city, about the size of Cork, with a population estimated at 237,000. The refugees are mostly Masalit people, an ethnic group who have been murdered and raped by the RSF militia which dominates Sudan's West Darfur state. Men are not being allowed to cross the border. Many are butchered on sight by the group, which has its origins in the Janjaweed militia, responsible for the worst atrocities of the Darfur crisis of 2003-2008. Eighty per cent of those in the nearby official Aboutengue refugee camp are widows and children. The grim testimony from the two camps , recorded by Irish Times journalists Patrick Freyne and Chris Maddaloni over the past two weeks, is harrowing: graphic stories of rape and bloody killing, of torture and amputees, of starving emaciated children, of desert camps of straw huts, sweltering heat, parched land. READ MORE 'We have lost so many people,' Mariaha Abdelkareem told them, describing her journey into exile. 'The people dead in the street,' shot by the RSF. 'There were violations for the girls and the women. If you were a man, they were killing you... It's too difficult to describe this as 'war'. We lost our community and our sense of being human beings.' Meanwhile, preoccupied by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the world is largely silent.
The Hindu
22-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Sudan's paramilitaries kill more than 30 in a new attack on a Darfur city, activists say
A paramilitary group in Sudan attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday (April 20, 2025), according to the Resistance Committees, an activist group. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the war. The RSF renewed its attack on Monday (April 21, 2025), shelling residential buildings and open markets in the city, the group said. There was no immediate comment from the RSF. El-Fasher, more than 800 km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher. The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts. The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then President Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities. The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county's east and centre. Sunday's (April 20, 2025) violence came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations. Last week's attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan's largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.
Arab Times
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
Sudan's paramilitaries kill more than 30 in new attack on Darfur city: activists
CAIRO, April 21, (AP): A paramilitary group in Sudan attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday, according to the Resistance Committees, an activist group. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the RSF renewed its attack on Monday, shelling residential buildings and open markets in the city, the group said. There was no immediate comment from the RSF. El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher. The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts. The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then President Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities. The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county's east and center. Sunday's violence came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations. Last week's attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan's largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said.
Japan Today
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Sudan's paramilitaries kill more than 30 in new attack on Darfur city, activists say
By SAMY MAGDY A paramilitary group in Sudan attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday, the Resistance Committees in the city said. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the war. The RSF renewed its attack on Monday, shelling residential buildings and open markets in the city, the activist group said. There was no immediate comment from the RSF. El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher. The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts. The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then President Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities. The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county's east and center. Sunday's violence came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations. Last week's attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan's largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
