Jona Källgren on site: Hundreds of thousands on the run – but can people even listen?
After years of war in Ukraine and Gaza, people may not be able to bear hearing about what Inas Mustafa Hassan has been through. That she, a 14-year-old girl, saw her father murdered in her own home. That she then left everything behind and fled to her mother in Chad.
It is another human fate, around 150 centimeters long and as narrow as a spear, standing in the mud right on the border between the torn homeland and one of the world’s poorest countries which is now her temporary home. Perhaps one human fate too much. But maybe we have to try anyway.
A country at war
The statistics are astounding. Around 150,000-200,000 people have died in fighting (but the dark figure is large), around 10 million people are refugees, over 630,000 in camps in Chad. According to some estimates, up to 2 million people may die from hunger and hunger-related diseases this year.
The war in Sudan started in April 2023 when the two parts of Sudan’s army started fighting: the Rapid Support Force (RSF) quickly took the capital Khartoum and large parts of the western and southern parts of the country. In Darfur, ethnic Africans, like Inas and her family, began to be driven out again.
The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) control the eastern parts of the country as well as a single town in Darfur, which has been under siege for months.
Both sides have international support. The RSF has the United Arab Emirates on its side, the SAF is assisted by Egypt and Iran. Russia seems to be playing both sides and the EU and US mostly try to ignore the conflict and think about something else.
Handy information
Satellite images show burnt villages, refugee camps and what appear to be mass graves, otherwise it is difficult to get a grasp of what is going on in Sudan.
But, at a brown body of water in the middle of Africa, you still get a feeling for the war. Hundreds of refugees splash across the river, which separates Sudan from Chad. They go on to camps run by UNHCR, where there is food and medical care.
In such a camp, Inas will probably celebrate her next birthday. If the war doesn’t end soon, she might be able to celebrate her 25th birthday there too. If the camp becomes permanent, she may live there as a 35-year-old. A forgotten refugee from a forgotten war with faint memories of his murdered father.