After fleeing the inferno of war in el-Fasher in North Darfur State and travelling more than 1,600km (9,995 miles) to safety, Sanaa Ahmed thought the worst was behind her. But in the Al-Sarraf camp in eastern Sudan, she has faced suffering of a different kind.
“We fled here with nothing,” Sanaa told Al Jazeera Mubasher. “Now Ramadan has come, and we don’t even have a pot to cook in or a cup to drink from. If you have a bucket or a jug, that’s it.”
Sanaa is one of thousands of displaced people who have sought refuge in Al-Gedaref state, far from the front lines of the war in the west. But safety has come at a steep price. The camp, intended as a sanctuary, has become a site of deprivation.
“The water is available, but there is no food,” she said. “They give us a meal, but it’s not a real meal, and it’s not enough.”
A Ramadan of hunger
For Muslims, Ramadan is traditionally a month of community, prayer and shared meals. For the displaced women of Al-Sarraf, it has become a daily struggle to find enough scraps to feed their children at sunset.
Majd Abdullah, another survivor from el-Fasher, described the stark contrast between her past life and her current reality.
“Back home, Ramadan was perfect. You would prepare everything a month or two in advance,” she recalled. “But here, we fasted the first day, not knowing what we would break our fast with. We ended up eating with neighbours because we had nothing.”
A recent United Nations report said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) atrocities in el-Fasher bore all the hallmarks of genocide.
The aid that does arrive is often woefully inadequate. Majd described receiving a single bowl of porridge to feed a family of seven or 10 people.
“No organisation has entered with a food basket or cash assistance,” she said. “We can’t feed our children unless we go into the city to wash clothes or iron – menial jobs just to survive.”
‘The children ask for biscuits’
The lack of food is compounded by a total absence of basic household necessities. Sumaya Saleh, who fled from Kutum in North Darfur, listed the items they are desperate for: cooking pots, charcoal and sugar.
“The children are missing so much,” Sumaya said. “They ask for a biscuit, and you don’t have the money to buy it for them.”
The camp’s elderly residents are also suffering. Sumaya noted that many suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure but cannot access medication or proper care at the local health centres.
Mawaheb Ibrahim, a diabetic who lost her mother, sister and uncle to shelling in el-Fasher, is now caring for orphans in the camp with no resources.
“I am a diabetic, and I had retinal surgery,” Mawaheb said. “My blood sugar has risen to 477… I went into a state of acetone [ketoacidosis], and it affected my ear. I’m just taking painkillers to sleep. I have no access to a doctor.”
Disease and neglect
Beyond the hunger, the sanitary conditions in the camp are deteriorating. Sanaa Ahmed described the health situation as “medium” but worsening, citing cases of diarrhoea and eye infections.
“There are huge amounts of flies,” she said. “The bathrooms are hot and not clean enough. We need spraying campaigns and cleaning tools.”
While some hygiene kits and soap have been distributed, the primary need – food – remains unmet. One unnamed displaced woman described the communal kitchen as insufficient for the number of people it serves.
“It doesn’t satisfy a man, a woman, or a child,” she said. “The topic of food baskets is completely finished here; they don’t bring them.”
For these women, the “safety” of Al-Gedaref has become a slow-motion crisis of neglect. They have survived the war, but they are now fighting to survive where they are not under fire.
“We need help,” Mawaheb pleaded. “I need something to keep us going, for the children I am raising and for myself.”