I met displaced people who had experienced unimaginable horrors – horrors that the world failed to stop.
I was about 13 years old when the conflict in Darfur began in 2003. As a teenager reading and listening to the news before the dawn of social media, I didn’t fully understand the historical or political context, but I understood there was a need to act. A need to put an end to a humanitarian crisis. It is one of the events that ultimately led me to become a physician and work in areas of conflict and natural disasters.
In the first two weeks of December, I volunteered with an NGO providing medical care in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in al-Dabba, in Sudan’s Northern State. In some ways, I have circled back to the beginning, back to the place that first incited me to action.
Over the course of the two weeks in which we were in al-Dabba, the population of the camp grew from 2,000 to more than 10,000. It felt at times like there would never be enough resources to accommodate all the newcomers. Not enough food and water. Not enough medication. Not enough latrines.
Instead, what I witnessed over and over again was the courage, generosity, and selflessness of the Sudanese people: From the IDPs themselves to the local staff of the NGO I was volunteering with.
These are the stories of some of those whom I met during the course of a day in the camp.
People like 15-year-old Fatima*. It had taken her 21 days to get to al-Dabba. She fled from el-Fasher as the Rapid Support Forces, a militia that is currently fighting the Sudanese army, advanced upon her hometown.
She was 10 weeks pregnant with her first child. She needed to be transferred to hospital for a fetal ultrasound. I asked her gently if the father of the child would be accompanying her to the hospital. She looked away. Her mother whispered to me that she had been raped. I took Fatima’s hand in mine and sat with her in silence, her tears falling onto my sleeves.
Then I met Aisha, a mother of five. She had lost her husband on the long and harrowing journey from el-Fasher to al-Dabba. Her haemoglobin was extremely low and I told her I would need to transfer her to the nearest hospital for a blood transfusion. She couldn’t bear to leave her children as they were having recurrent nightmares and not sleeping well at night after losing their father.
We spent the better part of an hour trying to problem-solve with her and settled on having the children stay with their grandma while Aisha was transferred to the hospital.
Then there was Khadija. It had taken her four weeks to get to al-Dabba. In the chaos of fleeing el-Fasher, she watched her husband get shot in the back. As heart-wrenching as it was to leave without giving him a proper burial, she carried on with her three young children, fleeing on foot.
En route, there was little to eat and limited potable water. Her youngest child died from severe diarrhoea and malnutrition. She somehow managed to find the strength to cobble together enough money to hitchhike in a vehicle with her two remaining children for part of the way.
But tragedy struck again. They ended up in a motor vehicle accident. Her second child died from her injuries. Khadija arrived at al-Dabba with her eldest son – the only surviving child.
When I met her in our medical tent, Khadija was 36 weeks pregnant with her fourth child. She had a urinary tract infection, so I gave her a course of antibiotics. She thanked me profusely, kissing both my cheeks. Her gratitude made me feel all the more embarrassed that I had so little to offer someone who had been through so much. I told her she would be in my prayers.
Suddenly, she leaned in close and asked me my name. I told her my name and she repeated it, letting it roll gently off her tongue. Then she pointed at her pregnant belly and said, “This is what I will name my child.” I felt overwhelmed by what she was giving me when so much had already been taken from her.
At one point, I needed to take a break for noon prayers, so I walked over to the thatched straw home of Auntie Najwa. She had been in the IDP camp for more than a year. Her prayer mat was one of her very few possessions. But she offered it freely to anyone who needed it. Her home felt like a haven of safety. She insisted I drink tea. When I politely declined, she offered me cooked beans and lentils. Her generosity left me humbled.
And so did the courage of my translator, Ahmed. He was a member of the local staff at the NGO where I was volunteering. At the beginning of the war in 2023, Ahmed took his parents and siblings to Egypt, made sure they were safe, and then returned to Sudan to continue serving his people. I heard stories like this over and over again.
The local team in Sudan had made countless sacrifices to remain in the country and serve its people despite innumerable threats to their own personal safety. When I think about the worry and concern of my own father as he dropped me off at the airport before my flight to Sudan, I can only imagine what Ahmed’s parents feel knowing their son remains in a warzone by choice while they live in relative safety.
Sudan is experiencing the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Yet it has received less than 35 percent of its global funding needs. One third of the population has been displaced. One in two is hungry. Many parts of the country are experiencing famine, with millions at risk of starvation.
I don’t know where the solutions lie. But I do know we, as an international community, have failed Sudan and its people over and over again.
We can do better. We must do better.
Fatima, Khadija, Aisha, Auntie Najwa, and Ahmed deserve better.
The Sudanese people deserve far better.
*All names have been changed to protect their identities.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect media’s editorial stance.
