Displaced Sudanese Lack Food, Latrines, Health care

Last week, Emmanuel Nwachukwu showed how Christians and doctors in Khartoum, Sudan, are trying to rebuild a broken city. Today, Nwachukwu describes the challenges facing families stuck in displacement camps.

On a sunny day in April, Alamin Hafez, 23, walked the sandy paths of Sudan’s Al-Afad Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp, lost in the sea of thousands of tents.

Hafez grew up in Al-Fashir, the capital city of North Darfur, surrounded by the love of his parents and five siblings. He dreamed of becoming a doctor and enrolled in Al-Fashir University. Five years into his studies, Sudan’s civil war reached his doorstep.

“It’s so sad because I can’t finish my education,” Hafez told CT. “I had a year and half left to graduate from university.”

Fighting between the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the government-backed Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) spread from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, to Darfur, a region in western Sudan. The RSF captured the region, including Hafez’s hometown, in October 2025 after an 18-month siege. Hafez’s studies halted. 

Still, Hafez decided to stay in Darfur to work in the Southern Hospital while his family fled to Farshana, a refugee camp in Chad, west of Sudan. Intensifying violence later forced him to leave Darfur and walk 745 miles—a month’s travel—north from Al-Fashir to Al-Afad, an IDP camp a five-hour drive from Khartoum.

“I didn’t only lose my studies. I am also here alone—without my family,” he said. “Now I just have to survive until I see them again.” He doesn’t know when that’ll be.

The UN said the war in Sudan has caused the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis, with nearly 14 million people displaced and 19 million people with limited access to food. Ten million children can’t go to school. At least 34 million people in Sudan—two-thirds of the population—require humanitarian assistance.

More than 10 million IDPs live in Sudan, while others have fled to neighboring nations. Al-Afad is one of the more than 10,000 IDP camps scattered across Sudan’s 18 states. More than 25,000 people live in Al-Afad.

For shelter, residents use wood and tarps to make makeshift tents, and reeds to make fences and walls. The SAF authorities who run the camp allow local and foreign nonprofits to provide one meal each morning six days a week. As in many camps, health care and education are also scarce.

Manal Abdula, another resident of Al-Afad, sits on the edge of the wooden bed she shares with her six children—ages 5 to 16—as she boils a large pot of oil and water over a nearby charcoal stove in her cramped shelter.

Abdula said six months ago her husband died in an explosion near his shop in the local market. Like Hafez, she and her children walked from Al-Fashir to Al-Afad, seeking safety. She said they slept under trees and survived off food and water people gave them along the way. The constant shelling terrified her children.

Now, Abdula said, she doesn’t know what to do next. She can’t find work in the camp and has no money to start a business. Without work, Abdula can’t purchase necessities or pay for her children’s education. She said she is just hoping for help to come.

“I have tried to look for work to take care of my children,” Abdula said. “I’m only surviving on the money some people gave me.”

Rami Abd El-Rahim, the camp manager at Al-Afad, said its one school can only handle 450 primary students—just under a third of the camp’s 1,500 school-aged children.

He also said Al-Afad stopped accepting residents three months ago after becoming overwhelmed trying to provide basic needs, including proper sanitation and hygiene. The camp needs 1,200 bathrooms but only has 200.

“There is a huge gap between the needs and the resources,” Simon Mane, director of World Vision in Sudan, told BBC. “The resources are running out, but the needs are increasing, which is a big concern for humanitarian workers.”

Humanitarian organizations, including Christian nonprofits such as Samaritan’s Purse and World Vision, struggle to move supplies across Sudan, especially in regions under RSF control. Both the SAF and the RSF sometimes try to press aid groups to sign documents recognizing one force’s legitimacy, and holding up supplies when nonprofits avoid taking sides.

A splintered Sudan makes it difficult for humanitarian workers to get food, drugs, and nutrition to IDP camps. In July 2025, the RSF announced a parallel government and now controls major parts of the nation’s west.

Meanwhile, SAF forces—under the recognized government of Sudan—occupy the east and the capital city of Khartoum.

“You have to get permits from each [government] before moving,” said Mohamed Hussain, an aid worker with Catholic Relief Services. 

Hussain, who works in the RSF-controlled town of Al-Daein town in East Darfur, said after combatants attacked the main hospital in the region, aid organizations had nowhere else to refer malnourished children and nursing mothers. Both the RSF and SAF denied responsibility.

“The constant strikes and drone attacks have also disrupted communication in some areas,” Hussain told CT. “This affects our security and movement.”

Sometimes the RSF targets IDP camps. In April 2025, the UN reported that the RSF killed at least 300 civilians during a three-day offensive strike on Zamzam IDP camp in North Darfur.

Meanwhile in Al-Afad, camp administrators say only 16 workers run the camp’s seven clinics, which include a pharmacy, a laboratory for tests, and few beds for patients. In one clinic serving as a maternity ward, staff deliver at least four babies daily.

Because the clinics have no electricity, they rely on solar energy to power the facilities. Medical workers refer serious cases to Al-Dabbah Central Hospital, about 12 miles away from the camp. They only have two ambulances available to transport these patients.

Hafez said he occasionally volunteers at one of the clinics, but he struggles to make sense of life. He told CT he suffers from depression. Hafez hasn’t seen his family since they fled Sudan, though sometimes he speaks to them over the phone. He tries to play soccer with other young men in the camp and make friends but often finds himself staring into the sky, thoughts wandering.

As we walked from Abdula’s to the maternity clinic, Hafez stopped, face bowed and muttered, “Can you help bring my family back to Sudan?”

Next week, Emmanuel Nwachukwu will provide the third part in this series showing how Christians in the city of Omdurman, Sudan, are coping after the destruction of their churches.

The ONE Campaign, a nonprofit group devoted to African development, paid for and organized CT’s trip to Sudan, but did not have any control over CT’s coverage.

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