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David Lammy ‘horrified’ after meeting war victims face-to-face

50996ad0 da82 11ef bc01 8f2c83dad217 50996ad0 da82 11ef bc01 8f2c83dad217

grey placeholderBBC David Lammy wears a white uniform among a crowd of newly arrived Sudanese in Chad and aid workers. BBC

Every day families stream down a dry, dusty road into Chad, fleeing war and famine in Sudan – scenes that clearly shook the British Foreign Secretary.

Under the blazing sun, David Lammy visited the Adre border site on Friday to witness first-hand the impact of Sudan’s civil war that broke out when the army and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, fell out.

Those who make it across the border are often separated from their families in the chaos that forces them to flee, and they are desperate to know if their relatives have made it across safely.

“It’s one of the most horrific things I’ve ever heard and seen in my life,” Lammy said.

“Overwhelmingly, what I saw here in Chad, on the border with Sudan, was women and children running for their lives – telling stories of massacres, mutilation, burning and sexual violence against them and their children. And among all of that, famine and hunger – what an incredible ordeal.”

The Foreign Minister saw dozens of women wrapped in light, multi-colored shawls and carrying children of different ages crossing on horse-drawn carriages.

They looked exhausted as they sat on bags carrying some belongings they could bring with them on the long journey to safety.

“Alhamdulillah” means “thank God,” Halima Abdullah says when I ask her how she feels after crossing the border.

The 28-year-old is comforted by the tragedy she suffered when she lost one of her children while fleeing Darfur, Sudan’s western region, which has suffered some of the most devastating violence over the past 21 months – much of it alleged. It happened. Committed by the Rapid Support Forces.

“I went first to El Geneina, but I had to run again when fighting broke out there,” she says, explaining how she was then separated from her husband and two other children.

grey placeholderA sitting aid worker in Chad looks over his shoulder as he hands papers to a woman in a line of new arrivals from Sudan.

Aid workers registering the new arrivals are trying to reunite those who were separated from relatives and children as they fled

Aid workers in Adre say they have been trying to reunite families once they cross the border.

One aid worker told the BBC: “Some mothers told us that they had to choose which children to run away with because they couldn’t carry them all at once.”

Humanitarian workers have brought some abandoned children across the border and placed them in alternative care while efforts are made to find their families.

Standing on the Chadian side of the border, Lamy spoke to the families who were fleeing and the aid workers who were receiving them.

After meeting some of the refugees, he told the BBC: “All these people have stories – very desperate stories of fleeing violence, of killings in their families, of rape, of torture, of mutilation.”

“I just sat with a woman who showed me signs of burns. She had her arms burned all over by soldiers, she was beaten and raped. This is desperate, and we must bring it to the attention of the world and bring it.” Suffering to the end.”

But he denounced what he described as a “hierarchy of conflict” that appears to have put Sudan at the bottom, even though it is currently witnessing the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

In November last year, the British Foreign Secretary led a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the UN Security Council, which Russia vetoed.

“How can you veto the misfortune that is happening here?” He asked, looking angry.

He told the BBC that he now intends to hold a meeting in London of Sudan’s neighbors such as Chad, Egypt and other “international partners to mediate peace.”

Several attempts at peace talks led by the United States and Saudi Arabia have failed to reach a solution to the conflict.

Since the mediation has failed, the United States has imposed sanctions on the generals leading both sides of the war. It also determined that the Rapid Support Forces and its allies committed genocide.

More than 12 million people have fled their homes since fighting broke out in April 2023.

grey placeholderWomen wearing colorful head coverings sit on mats, some holding children on their laps, in a makeshift reception area at the Adré border crossing in Chad.

These women and children pictured on Friday had just crossed the border into Chad, fleeing atrocities being committed in Darfur.

According to UN agencies, more than 50 million civilians are caught up in the bitter fighting, nearly half of whom are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world here. At the Khiam clinic in Adre, health workers measure the circumference of six-month-old Rasma Ibrahim’s upper arm.

The color-coded ribbon extends to the red end. The impact of her health condition can last throughout her life. One in seven children here in Adre suffer from malnutrition.

Lammy said the UK would continue to press for a ceasefire.

It has already doubled its aid to 200 million pounds ($250 million), and is calling on other donor countries to step up their aid.

However, aid agencies are concerned about newly elected US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.

There is no doubt that the interruption of support from one of the largest donors in the world will have devastating consequences for crises such as Sudan. The United Nations is already struggling to meet its goals for much-needed aid funds.

In 2024, an appeal was launched for $2.7bn (£2.2bn) to support Sudan, but only 57% of these funds have been made available.

At a food distribution center in Adre, bags of yellow peas, millet, sorghum, boxes of cooking oil and other supplies were neatly arranged on tarpaulins as families from the nearby refugee camp lined up to get their rations.

The cries of children tied with shawls to the backs of their mothers standing in line fill the air. Families are called one by one to collect their food rations.

A man helps lift a bag of dry food onto another person’s shoulder, then hums as he makes his way back to his temporary home.

grey placeholderDavid Lammy in a white T-shirt bends over a bed as a mother sits with her baby and toddler at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Chad. An MSF paramedic stands nearby

David Lammy, who also visited the Doctors Without Borders clinic in Adre, urged donors to increase aid to Sudan

Adre’s population was about 40,000 before Sudan’s civil war began, and has now increased more than five-fold, according to local volunteers.

Refugees here are among the lucky few. Across the border, in Darfur, famine was declared in August in Zamzam camp, near the city of El Fasher, which has been besieged by the Rapid Support Forces for more than a year.

On Friday came the devastating news that one of El Fasher’s last functioning hospitals had been bombed by a drone, killing at least 30 people. Regional authorities said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces were the culprits, but did not respond to this claim.

Last December, the UN-backed Famine Review Commission said the famine had spread to more areas – in Darfur to Abu Shouk and Al Salam camps and parts of South Kordofan state.

Famine spread despite the reopening of the Adreh border, which the army had closed on suspicion that it was being used to transfer weapons to its rivals.

As we left the border, three or four trucks bearing UN World Food Program banners drove slowly down the dirt road that crosses the border into Sudan.

They will deliver much-needed aid to villages, towns and displacement camps beyond the borders. But it is still far from enough.

Lamy said: “We must intensify our efforts and wake up now to this huge, huge crisis.”

More about the war in Sudan:

grey placeholderGetty Images/BBC A woman looks at her mobile phone and a photo by BBC News AfricaGetty Images/BBC

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2025-01-25 16:19:00

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