‘Mommy, they are coming to kill us.’ Scenes from the worst humanitarian crisis on earth

Severe dehydration starts with a dry mouth and a headache, then parched lips. Breathing becomes rapid and shallow, then dizziness sets in. Exhaustion overtakes the whole body, slowing everything down. Movements grow sluggish, thoughts dull. The body’s functions slowly degrade until there is no more strength left. That is when the fear takes over. Maria was past all of that. She felt like she was in the final stages.

Finally, the sand felt wet. After a few more scoops, a small puddle of water appeared. Maria immediately cupped her hands and drank, feeling the water run down her dried throat.

Then she tried to give her daughter, Imtias, some water to drink.

The fight for water in the wadi

Maria is twenty years old. She was running from her Darfur village, trying to get as far from the shooting and bombs as possible. Many of those alongside her were mothers. Like those women, Maria was carrying her young child on her back, held in place by the only possession she brought with her, a thin piece of cloth.

The infant had grown very quiet – her cries had stopped.

Maria explained that most of the babies did not move or make sounds as the mothers fled. The mothers didn’t know if their babies were still alive, if there simply wasn’t enough water for tears, not enough strength for a baby to cry, or if they had been carrying their dead children on their backs.

Mothers and children in crisis

Maria and Imtias are just two of the 12 million people across Sudan who have been forced from their homes – both within the country and into neighboring states like Chad. The violence has turned Sudan into the largest displacement crisis in the world. Sudan holds another distinction: the biggest hunger crisis on earth, nnearly half the population acutely food insecure.

Across Darfur, the fighting has killed thousands of civilians, damaged critical infrastructure, and turned living conditions into an everyday nightmare.

Essential supplies such as food, water, and fuel have been scarce. What is available for sale is exorbitantly priced. The siege of El Fasher, a city of 500,000 and the capital North Darfur, began in April of this year and has placed an added layer of suffering onto the region.

Last August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) determined that famine was occurring at the Zamzam Camp, 10 miles to the south of the city.

Maria and most other refugees didn’t know that camps like Zamzan existed. Some even didn’t know that Chad as a country exists. They were just looking for safety. They didn’t flee with determination and a clear goal; they fled because it was the only thing they could do. They just followed their own two feet.

A displaced persons camp like Zamzam would be a place of relative safety, but many like Maria, Imtias, and the other villagers didn’t even know it existed.

Sisters in survival

The three sisters – Teissir (23), Oumina (22), and Amani (20) – had been asleep. Their house in East Darfur had been quiet at 4AM.

Then, the screaming started.

The sisters woke up in their beds to the sounds of explosions and shooting. A grenade flew through the window, and the family started running. Teissir and Amani managed to get outside through the smoke and flames. Outside, in the crowd of terrified people, running in all directions, Teissir heard her mother yell that she was going to look for their father, then she was gone.

Oumina was missing.

“I couldn’t see her anywhere,” remembers Teissir. “I yelled her name and then turned to our burning house. I went back inside to look for her and saw her on the floor, crawling towards the open door. She was engulfed in flames.”

“I was burning,” Oumina says. “Then my sisters came and pulled me outside,” She holds her left arm close to her body. The arm is covered in wounds and burns, with a pattern that shows where the flames travelled.

“We used sand to cover her body to extinguish the flames,” says Teissir. “There was no water anywhere.”

All of this was happening while the bombs exploded, and shooting continued all around them. Once the flames were out, Teissir dragged Oumina to her feet and yelled at the family to run.

“We half-carried and half-pulled her for 30 minutes to a school a little outside our village where everyone else was hiding,” says Teissir. “There was so much shooting, and we saw our neighbors being shot left and right from us.”

She flinched at every bullet fired but the sisters kept moving, running as fast as they could, with a half-conscious Oumina between them, until they reached the school.

“There, a woman told me to leave my sister behind as she would die. I yelled at her that I would never do that. She will not die. I will carry her the whole way if I have to,” says Teissir.

The memory brings a heavy silence over the three sisters as they remember how close Oumina came to dying.

“I was only thinking about my mother,” Oumina says. “That if she were here, everything would be alright and that she would know what to do and how to get me out.”

But their mother had disappeared in the chaos of fighting and violence.

The sisters knew they would have to keep Oumina alive if they were all going to survive. Because of the burns and smoke inhalation , Oumina’s throat swelled shut, making it impossible for her to drink any fluids on her own, but Teissir found a balloon, filled it with water and fed her sister small drops of water. She also used ash to cover and close the open wounds on her sister’s scorched arm.

They were alive, but they still had to find a way out of the fighting.

“There was so much smoke in the whole village that we couldn’t see anything,” says Teissir. “The attacks were coming closer, so we had to move. We followed our neighbors. We had to leave our parents behind because we couldn’t find them. We did not know where we were going, we just walked, putting one foot in front of the other.

“I thought we would die. There was nothing left for us. I didn’t want to get up again. I didn’t have the strength to continue. I wanted to just stay and wait for my death, but my little sister gave me the strength to go on.”

Teissir grabs Amina’s hand as she speaks.

“I had faith. I had hope. We needed to continue and not give up. So, I told my sisters to walk. I told them to get up. Walk. GET UP! One day people will help us. One day our parents will find us.”

Hope beyond the border

Maria and the other women and children from her village walked until they could no longer stand, dropping everything wherever they were. In the middle of nowhere. The sun burned hot, the flies were buzzing, but, like the three sisters, they had to sit down where they were, with no shelter or shade. They were exhausted

Then, they listened for explosions and gunshots.

“I only knew that I was somewhere else because I could no longer hear shooting or explosions,” recalls Maria.

Like the three sisters, Maria and her neighbors had kept moving, walking away from the sounds of explosions.

With no goal in mind, they were only walking because the others were walking. They followed the dynamic of the group. Refugees. They collapsed on the floor together at the end of the day, only to get up again the next morning, every day a little slower, resting a few minutes longer, thinking that day might be the day they won’twouldn’t have the strength to continue. The day they give up.

But without knowing, they crossed the border to a different country. Maria and the others made it to Chad.

At around the same time, the three sisters — Teissir, Oumina, and Amani — also arrived in Chad. As of November 2024, they were among the 712,000 other Sudanese refugees who had also fled here . And here, in the Guereda district of Eastern Chad, is one of the places in Eastern Chad where CARE is working.

From despair to action

With the financial support of the European Union, CARE has set up a health facility here, focusing on improving health and nutrition outcomes for vulnerable groups, pregnant or lactating women, and children under five.

Many of these women and children are from Sudan, but, because Chad itself is under enormous stress, some of the people are from elsewhere in the country.

People like Hawa and her 14-month old daughter, Mariam.

Hawa tied Mariam to her back with a worn piece of cloth and set out for the health center in Guereda at dawn.

Every step was a battle – against hunger, exhaustion, and fear – and for over three hours, Hawa walked and ran, terrified by the dangers of the road.

“Every time I heard a sound, I started running again,” she says. “[Normally,] I never go far from home — it’s too dangerous. My neighbor was raped once, they just left her lying on the road. But I have nothing left. I have to come for my baby.”

Hawa is one of millions facing the devastating effects of food insecurity in Chad. This year, the country is experiencing its worst lean season in recorded history. Over 3.4 million people are severely food insecure, and 1.9 million children suffer from acute malnutrition.

Hawa’s baby Mariam is one of these suffering children.

By 9:30AM, Hawa reached the health center. Exhausted and trembling, she explained Mariam’s condition to the staff. Paul, a nurse at the health center, examined the baby.

Mariam was underweight for her age. Her Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) measurement of 11.5 cm placed her on the brink between severe and moderate acute malnutrition.

She was too weak to sit up.

The faces of malnutrition

Paul has seen far too many cases like Mariam’s.

“Malnutrition doesn’t just affect the weight of the child,” he says. “It weakens their bones, causes the hair to fall out, and deforms the body. It even affects the brain – parts of it can stop growing entirely. The immune system collapses, leaving the child vulnerable to illnesses like fever and diarrhea.”

Chad’s fragile state exacerbates the health and nutrition crisis. The country is overwhelmed by rising food prices, environmental degradation, and the impacts of flooding.

The influx of refugees into Chad – 700,000 from Sudan, 1.2 million total — has added immeasurable strain. The surge of displaced people has driven wages down and competition for limited resources up, leaving vulnerable populations with little to survive on.

Many families have resorted to desperate coping mechanisms – selling livestock, withdrawing children from school, or scavenging for food.

Although the harvest period has begun, the communities lack access to agricultural production and remain dependent on markets for their food supply. However, basic food prices remain unusually high due to limited market availability, compounded by challenges from flooding and increasing transportation costs.

After weighing Mariam in the large colored plastic bowl held up by strings and attached to the weighing scale, Paul listened to her breathing.

“Breathing is difficult for a malnourished child. It is slow and deep. The lungs rattle and it sounds like wind being pressed through a small pipe,” he explains.

“Also, the blood amount reduces in the body. The child needs more strength to produce enough blood. The more severe the malnutrition gets, the more physical signs you see. The next step is the tongue turning white. The inside of the eyelids also gets white due to the blood loss. The stomach bloats and forms outwards. Fingers swell and nails turn white. When you press down on the skin of the foot of the baby it stays that way and does not form back.”

After confirming Mariam’s diagnosis, Paul gives the baby porridge powder, and Hawa’s immediate relief is visible. She smiles. The baby eats.

A war on women and girls

Prior to April 2023, when the conflict in Sudan started, nearly seven million people living in Chad were already in need of humanitarian assistance. In 2023, the country ranked 125 out of 127 on the World Hunger Index, with high food prices, disrupted trade, and climate shocks worsening hunger.

The global humanitarian response in Chad remains severely underfunded – only 49.8% of the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan has been financed. Hawa, Mariam, and Paul all need help.

“As we have said for months, what’s happening in Sudan is a war on women and girls” said Mohamed Tijani, CARE’s Head of Office in South Darfur.

“It’s mostly women that we see in our clinics, mothers and their small, malnourished children. It’s women that we see in the displacement sites across Darfur. It is almost all women and children who are crossing the border into Chad. They travel so far with nothing, often with little but their small children on their backs. I hear their stories every day, of the horrors they faced while searching for safety, of their long, grueling journeys, of the hunger and malnutrition their families have endured.”

The health centers supported by CARE are usually closer than Paul’s clinic was from Hawa, so her journey is unusual. But Paul says the health center receives over 100 mothers in similarly desperate straits each week.

“Sixty of those children are in the red zone, meaning they are acutely severely malnourished,” Paul says. “Without urgent help, many of them won’t survive.”

With food prices skyrocketing and access to aid hindered by flooding, the need for action is critical. For Hawa and Mariam, the journey to survival is far from over, but, for now, they have a bowl of porridge, and hope.

Which is more than many families in Sudan have.

Maria, for her part, is still in the middle of nowhere, sitting on the floor with over a hundred of her neighbors. Yet she feels a small bit of the same hope Hawa has.

“At night we now only hear the crying of the children that still can cry,” she says. “But the sounds of war are gone. We are still alive. But we have no more strength left.”

Living with invisible scars

Whenever they hear a loud or unexpected noise in the refugee camp, Maysam (10), Baisam (6), and Maysoun (4) sprint back to their small hut made from mud, sand, and corrugated iron. A gate shuts with a loud bang, a donkey starts yelling loudly, a car hits a pothole, or a pot is dropped on the floor and echoes through the otherwise quiet refugee camp. The girls yell for their mother and hide.

The girls are Nima’s (34) daughters.

They fled together from their hometown Al-Fashir in Darfur, Sudan, to Chad in June 2023.

“I try to calm them down, but it is not always easy to make them feel safe when I do not feel safe,” Nima says, holding her youngest child, six-month-old Cherif, who was born in the refugee camp. Her daughters know first-hand what war looks like. “They came to our home late in the evening, and my husband was shot in the shoulder. I tried bandaging the wound with whatever I could find, and then we all started running. They were entering our neighbors’ and friends’ houses, shooting at everyone.”

Their journey to Chad took five days on foot, across the dry plain.

Food and water were nowhere to be found.

On good days, they encountered a village where they got something to eat and drink.

“My husband was bleeding a lot. We just walked and followed the group. We did not know we were going to Chad. We were just running away from the explosions and shooting. When we finally arrived in Chad, I was very happy and relieved. For a second, I forgot the fear,” Nima says.

Yet the fear soon crept back in.

The memories of what they endured haunt not only her but her children.

“My six-year-old still has nightmares every night. She yells ‘Mommy, they are coming to kill us. We have to run.’”

The girls ask Nima a lot of questions.

“But how do I explain war to them? What do I answer when they ask me what they did wrong and why they are being hunted? I do not know. This is war!”

The trauma is equally present for the adults.

“My heart is still beating so fast. I wake up in the middle of the night screaming because I am so afraid all the time that they may come here to kill us again. I do not feel at home here in this camp as long as I am scared. I need peace of mind. I need the war to stop. Then I can feel at home again,” says Nima.

Living in a refugee camp in Chad is not easy. The lack of international funding means Nima and her family were only able to receive food assistance for the first four months after they arrived.

After the distributions stopped, they had to find ways to feed themselves in an area where floods and droughts have left too few crops to support the people in need.

CARE – with the financial support of the European Union – provided cash assistance, so that Nima and her family members could cover their basic needs.

“With the money, we bought flour, sugar, and salt. Since we had the money, we ate small portions of food twice a day. But now there are only 7 kilos15 pounds of flour left. And in five days, there will be nothing left for my children, my still-injured husband, and my three sisters.”

Those three sisters? Teissir, Oumina, and Amani who arrived after their journey to the camp here where they were told a phone number had been left behind for them. When they called the number, it was Nima, their eldest sister, on the line.

She had arrived at the camp a few months earlier with her family.

The sisters are assigned a place to live near Nima’s hut, and they receive cash assistance from CARE to support themselves, which they use to buy food: yellow peas, tomatoes, cooking oil, flour, salt, and sugar.

“Before CARE came to support us, there was no food,” Teissir says. “Some days, we had no food at all, but this is nothing that can be changed. You are weak for a short time and then you get up and continue. You go and find work. If there is no more food, we will work. We have hands, so we will find a way.”