Message from an Ethiopian in Khartoum: Armed children, constant violence, starving refugees

Hundreds of refugees in Khartoum are in desperate need of assistance and some have died from a lack of food, according to an Ethiopian refugee in the Sudanese capital.

The man, who asked not to be named for his own safety, communicated with The Irish Times through WhatsApp. It is a “terrible time for refugees,” he said. “We are in [the] worst condition.” He said he knew of about 30 people who had died, “some of them by bullets, some lack of medicine and some starvation”.

Before the conflict between the Sudanese army and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on April 15th, the North African country – with a population of roughly 48 million – was sheltering more than 1.1 million refugees from other countries. These included people from neighbouring Eritrea, a dictatorship notorious for human rights abuses; Ethiopia, where conflict in the north began in late 2020; and South Sudan, which was affected by a long and devastating civil war, starting in 2013.

About 4.8 million people have been displaced in Sudan’s war, with about one million fleeing the country completely, according to the United Nations. Thousands have been killed, according to estimates from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.

Sudan conflict explained: the rival generals behind a deadly power struggle

---

Global violence forces record 68m people to flee homes - monitoring centre

---

‘On the precipice of a large scale massacre’: Sudan’s war escalates with dizzying speed

---

I have reported in Rwanda three times. On my fourth attempt, I was not allowed on the plane

---

Many who are still there, including the refugee who spoke to The Irish Times, are stranded because of a lack of funds or documentation, and say they have no idea where they could go. The man said he believes there are about 800 refugees still in southern Khartoum.

[ Who are the rival forces fighting for control of Sudan? ]

The man said violence is constant, and there are armed children roaming the city – some of them as young as 10. “They are acting like a member of the [RSF paramilitary group], during the night they enter any house forcefully to rob.”

A letter shared with The Irish Times, written by three refugees in Khartoum, said the bodies of some, who died due to a lack of medicine, had not been discovered for a week after their deaths. The letter included a list of 52 names and numbers of refugees in Khartoum who need help, some of whom have up to nine family members stranded with them.

Many have developed hearing problems because of the “high pitched voice of weapons”, the Ethiopian refugee said. “We tried to contact [the UN Refugee Agency in] Geneva and Kenya for help but we didn’t get an answer.”

When the war began, he said some refugees from Khartoum fled to camps in Gedaref, hundreds of kilometres away in eastern Sudan, but they found the conditions there to be very poor. “It is not relatively better. There is no help,” the man said.

An aid worker with knowledge of the situation, who did not want to be identified because they did not have permission to speak to the media, said the infrastructure in Sudan’s refugee camps was weak and there was pressure on resources. The lack of funding that UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations are receiving means they cannot “properly function” in the camps, the aid worker said. “There [is a] lack of basic services ... The health system is very weak ... they lack medicines for mostly everything.”

Last week, the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that its 2023 humanitarian response plan for Sudan was only 26.4 per cent funded, with $676.9 million (€631 million) received as of the end of August.

Poor conditions have driven some refugees to return to Khartoum despite the war there, the aid worker confirmed.

Before the conflict, there were about 309,000 refugees living in Khartoum, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Many were hoping to be chosen for legal resettlement to western countries, though the number of spaces on offer was low: only 1,361 refugees were resettled from Sudan over four years, the UN says.

In Khartoum, the aid worker knew of nothing being done to help refugees specifically. “The situation remains unknown.”