The civil war in Sudan has caused the largest displacement crisis in the world. More than 10 million people have fled their homes. Over 2 million of them have gone to neighboring countries, including 600,000 who have headed to Chad, where more refugees arrive every day.
In some places, the Sudanese refugees nearly outnumber locals. Food and water were already scarce in Chad because of the arid climate and recurrent droughts. Resources are strained — and humanitarian aid organizations aren’t able to keep up with the needs of the refugees.
NPR's Fatma Tanis spent the past week reporting from eastern Chad and spoke to Ari Shapiro of All Things Considered and Leila Fadel of Morning Edition about what she's seen. You went to a remote town called Guereda. Tell us what you've seen.
Guereda is about 20 miles from the border with Sudan. The only way in is by road, which is unpaved and flooded and muddy. Now, this town is surrounded by massive refugee camps, where about 90,000 Sudanese people are staying.
The majority of the adults are women – they told us the men were either killed, missing or not allowed to leave Sudan by armed groups. More than half of the camp population are children. These refugees have harrowing stories of the war in Sudan.
Many of their family members have been killed. But right now, they are in dire need of food and water and health care. The children I saw today were very thin.
Many told me that they're eating only one meal a day — a bland porridge mad.