Jay Deshmukh -
Together with her husband and seven children, Shadiya Ibrahim fled war and famine in South Sudan and says she has found safety in Sudan’s conflict-ravaged Darfur.
“This was the only place we knew we could come to,” Ibrahim said at El Nimir camp in East Darfur, a newly opened facility for refugees crossing into Sudan by the hundreds each day.
Ibrahim, 40, was among a crowd gathered on Tuesday to mark World Refugee Day at the camp in the presence of US charge d’affaires Steven Koutsis, making a visit to Darfur.
Koutsis travelled across vast stretches of Darfur — a region the size of France — to assess the security situation before President Donald Trump decides next month to whether to permanently lift a two-decades-old trade embargo on Khartoum.
Darfur has become a refuge for South Sudanese like Ibrahim.
“We are peaceful and secure here. There we lived in fear, but now we no longer feel afraid,” she said.
A brutal conflict broke out in Darfur itself in 2003 when ethnic minority groups took up arms against President Omar al Bashir’s government, which launched a deadly counter-insurgency.
At least 300,000 people have since been killed and 2.5 million displaced in Darfur, the United Nations says.
Sudanese officials claim the conflict in Darfur has ended, despite reports of continued fighting between government forces and rebels.
Ibrahim and several other refugees at El Nimir camp say the difficulties they face in the camp are minor compared to the trauma they experienced in their country.
South Sudan — formed after the south split from the north in 2011 — plunged into a civil war just two years later when Kiir fell out with Machar.
Since then the war has seen ethnic massacres, attacks on civilians and other human rights abuses.
About 400,000 South Sudanese have arrived in Sudan since the war erupted in the world’s youngest country, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.
About 50 per cent of them live in 10 camps in Sudan, while the rest are scattered in cities and towns.— AFP
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