LONDON: Thousands of people are making dangerous journeys to neighboring countries to escape the violence raging in Sudan. But along the way, many face another danger: deadly heat.
Dozens of people trying to illegally cross the border into Egypt have died as the region grapples with a severe summer heatwave. Earlier this month, temperatures in Egypt’s southern province of Aswan rose to a record 49.6 degrees Celsius in the shade.
The Refugee Platform, an independent Egyptian human rights organization, reported on June 17 that residents of Aswan found vehicles filled with the bodies of killed migrants on remote desert roads.
It was reported that 51 people died, probably on the way to Egypt, as a result of dehydration, heat stroke or road accidents combined with a lack of medical care. Survivors of hospitalization in Aswan told the Refugee Platform that the number of missing migrants exceeds the number found.
Many families reported their loved ones missing. “My aunt lost contact with her 34-year-old son for two weeks earlier this month, only to be told by a friend who had reached Egypt that he had died of heatstroke before they crossed the border,” said Manal, a British nurse living in Sudan. whose name has been changed to protect her anonymity.
She told Arab News that her cousin, who was displaced from his home in the capital Khartoum, had previously sent his mother, wife and their five-year-old son to Egypt when Sudanese women and the minor were visa-exempt.
According to UN data, the conflict between the Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which broke out on April 15 last year, led to the displacement of 9.1 million people, of which 2.1 million fled abroad.
According to the International Organization for Migration, approximately 500,000 people from Sudan have fled to Egypt alone since the conflict began.
This year’s Global Peace Index, compiled by the Sydney-based Institute of Economics and Peace, ranked Sudan as the second least peaceful country in the world, behind only Yemen.
Before its descent into horror, Sudan was Africa’s second-largest host of refugees, hosting more than a million refugees from Syria, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea, the Central African Republic, Chad and Yemen.
Currently, Sudanese refugees constitute the largest refugee community in Egypt, with over 300,000 registered in the neighboring country with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Alessandro Abbonizio, a Nairobi-based communications specialist for the World Food Program, described the refugee crisis in Sudan as “the world’s largest displacement crisis,” with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese also fleeing to other neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan.
He said that while WFP had “mobilised a massive response” in neighbouring countries to support families fleeing Sudan, many of those countries were already struggling with “high levels of food insecurity”.
“The arrival of Sudanese refugees in these countries will extend WFP’s already underfunded refugee and humanitarian response efforts across the region,” he told Arab News. “In South Sudan, WFP has already had to cut humanitarian aid, with vulnerable families receiving only half of their food rations.”
According to UN data, approximately 7.1 million people in South Sudan already face severe or greater food insecurity, and the number of people at risk of hunger and death between April and July 2024 is expected to almost double compared to the same period last year .
Abbonizio pointed out that thousands of Sudanese continue to cross the border into South Sudan every week, adding that “families arrive with stories of long journeys with little food and water, and cite violence and lack of food as the main reasons for leaving Sudan.”
South Sudan has also been experiencing extreme heat since March, when authorities ordered schools across the country to close. The country, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, is highly vulnerable to climate phenomena such as droughts, floods and rising temperatures, which have led to further displacement, food insecurity and religious and ethnic unrest.
In Chad, “fragmented funding has forced WFP to operate on a month-to-month basis, which fails to meet the needs of refugees (including from Sudan) and host communities affected by the crisis,” Abbonizio said.
Without preventive measures, worsening climate conditions spell doom for the region, putting millions of people at greater risk of food insecurity and, ultimately, malnutrition.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned that extreme climate events “could have serious consequences for several hotspots, including the risk of flooding in parts of South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Chad, Mali and Nigeria, as well as Sudan.”
The Hunger Hotspots report, published on June 5, highlighted that “Mali, Palestine, South Sudan and Sudan are on the highest alert and require the most urgent attention.”
WFP’s Abbonizio warned that as the rainy season approaches in the coming weeks, access to parts of eastern Chad will be cut off, potentially worsening the region’s food insecurity crisis.
Noting that 3.4 million people in Chad are projected to be at risk of severe food insecurity in the current lean season from June to August, he said: “This year is becoming a race against time as the wet season is set to begin in the coming weeks and could cut off access to parts of eastern Chad.”
INNUMBERS
• Over 700,000 refugees and returnees who have fled Sudan to South Sudan since April 2023.
• More than 900,000 people are expected to flee from Sudan to Chad by the end of 2024.
• Over 300,000 Sudanese refugees registered with UNHCR in Egypt.
Abbonizio appealed for urgent funds “to build food supplies for refugees before the arrival of the rainy season,” adding that “WFP is also supporting hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt by providing them with food, cash and nutritional assistance.”
Meanwhile, long waiting times and a lack of basic amenities at the Sudanese-Egyptian border are forcing an increasing number of Sudanese people to take illegal routes to Egypt in the hope of finding refuge.
“Some of the bodies arrived with peeling skin and dehydration,” a medical source at an Aswan hospital told Mada Masr daily.
Survivors testified that “dozens of people in the desert have no water” and that “entire families died due to high temperatures and were left there.”
The exact number of people who died in this process is difficult to determine. The Platform for Refugees reported that between June 7 and 9, 40 people lost their lives, including children, women and entire families. That number is expected to increase as more bodies are discovered.
Last June, Cairo announced that all Sudanese men must have valid visas before entering Egypt, repealing a law that only required Sudanese men aged 16 to 50 to have a visa.
A report by the AFP news agency shows that as Egypt continues to tighten entry and residence requirements, at least 120,000 people without travel documents remain in limbo on the Sudanese side of the border.
Since September, Egyptian authorities have also been arresting Sudanese refugees “based on their migration status.” The decision was made after authorities detected “illegal activities” including visa fraud, an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters news agency.
In March, Sudanese Radio Dabanga reported a flourishing trade in fake Egyptian visas at the Argeena border crossing between the two countries.
In a message of condolence to the families of those who died while trying to reach Egypt, Abdelgadir Abdallah, Sudan’s consul general in Aswan, warned of the dangers of illegally crossing into Egypt. “Avoid using this method. Some areas of Sudan are safe; stay there,” he said.
