Refugees from an endless war

Sitting in a tent in the Ouré Cassoni refugee camp in eastern Chad, Israa Mohammed’s eyes are dry. The repeated deaths dried up his last tears: “Militiamen stopped us on the way out of El-Fasher. They isolated the women, then executed all the men. » His uncle and grandfather were killed on the spot. A few months earlier, a drone strike had already killed his father and brother.

At 27, Israa is one of the million Sudanese refugees in Chad since the start of the fratricidal war launched in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as “Hemetti”. At the end of October, after eighteen months of siege, the RSF captured El-Fasher, the last major town in Darfur still controlled by the Sudanese army. A conquest which gave rise to numerous summary executions targeting civilians. According to satellite images, tens of thousands of people could have been killed in a few days.

Maryam Adam, also a refugee in Ouré Cassoni, lost everything in an FSR drone attack. Her daughter Ghalia still bears the marks on her back. “The weapons are more deadly than before and they are using them to hunt us down for good,” she sighs. In the camps, the hope of a return is fading. “Each massacre makes the future more uncertain,” summarizes Abdallah Tabet, a community representative. Since the cessation of part of international aid, food distributions have become rarer. “We are stuck here, without work or prospects,” notes Kamal Abdelaziz, local volunteer.