Sudanese refugees in Chad face worsening water shortages

Sudanese refugees in Chad are struggling with severe water shortages in crowded camps across the country’s arid east, according to Al Jazeera reporting from Goudrane and Adre. The shortages matter because many refugees who fled Sudan’s war now depend on strained aid systems for drinking water, medicine and basic sanitation.

At Goudrane refugee camp, which shelters about 50,000 Sudanese refugees, Al Jazeera reported that water tanks had been dry for four days before a truck arrived with 6,000 litres of water. Hundreds of people rushed toward it, and the supply was gone within 10 minutes.

Rokhia Ibrahim, a 43-year-old Sudanese schoolteacher, told Al Jazeera she watched pupils leave the truck with empty containers. She said she had fled fighting around el-Fasher less than a year earlier and accused Rapid Support Forces fighters of attacking her family during the escape.

Why are Sudanese refugees in Chad short of water?

The United Nations says more than 938,000 Sudanese refugees have entered Chad since Sudan’s war began in April 2023. Many are living in overcrowded camps in eastern Chad, where Al Jazeera reported that some people receive less than half the minimum daily water supply recommended under UNHCR humanitarian standards.

A doctor at Goudrane’s clinic told Al Jazeera that treating infections is difficult when patients do not have safe water to take medicine. The report said young mothers were lining up for care at the clinic as water access remained unreliable.

Solidarites International, a French humanitarian group working in Chad since 2008, said the current water emergency in eastern camps is among the most urgent it has faced in the country. Thibault Henry, the group’s country director, told Al Jazeera that available funding is not enough to give everyone safe water.

Henry said demand is rising faster than existing boreholes, pipelines, sanitation systems and water treatment services can handle. Aid agencies are trying to expand access, but the continued arrival of refugees has added pressure to already limited infrastructure.

What refugees say they survived before reaching Chad

In the Adre transit camp near the Sudanese border, refugees described attacks by the RSF and allied armed groups, according to Al Jazeera. Zahra Khamis, from el-Geneina in West Darfur, said she survived rape, repeated attacks on her home and weeks of drone attacks before fleeing toward Chad.

Khamis, a member of the Masalit community, told Al Jazeera that her son was shot dead before the family reached the border. United Nations investigators have described attacks on Masalit people in and around el-Geneina as ethnic cleansing.

The RSF, a predominantly Arab paramilitary group, has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces since April 2023. Al Jazeera reported that the war, now in its fourth year, has spread across much of Sudan and driven what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis.

For many refugees in Chad, the prospect of return remains distant. Fatne Adam, 53, told Al Jazeera she has lived in Metche refugee camp for more than three years after her husband and son were shot by snipers as the family fled Sudan.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.