71% of Sudanese report surviving human rights violations while fleeing: UN refugee agency

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - The UN refugee agency on Friday said 71% of people fleeing to Chad reported having survived human rights violations, describing the levels of trauma among the refugees as "devastating."

Calling that fleeing route "dangerous and inhumane," Dominique Hyde, the director of external relations at UNHCR, told a UN briefing in Geneva that the human rights violations against refugees are "not rare."

"A staggering 71 per cent of refugees arriving in Chad report surviving human rights violations in Sudan while fleeing. The levels of trauma are devastating, with families in shock after fleeing the horrors, still living in fear despite being in relative safety," she said.

Calling Chad "a sanctuary, a lifeline" for the 700,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled since the beginning of the war in April of last year," she said that nearly 90% of the refugees are women and children, who have been forced to abandon their homes as conflict rages across Sudan.

"This is the largest refugee influx in Chad's history, and new arrivals come in addition to the 400,000 Sudanese who are already living in protracted situations in Chad, bringing the total Sudanese refugee population in Chad to 1.1 million and counting," Hyde said.

Recent violence has only intensified the exodus, she said, adding that in the month of October alone, 60,000 refugees crossed the border following an escalation of fighting in Darfur and the retreat of floodwaters.

"Civilians are paying the highest price in this violent conflict. Those who managed to escape to Chad have recounted the atrocities: civilians terrorized, houses looted, people and animals killed. Many have been forced to watch their loved ones murdered," Hyde said.

"People have been targeted on the basis of their ethnicity; men and boys killed, and their bodies burned. Women have been raped while fleeing," she added.

Hyde said that she is appalled by the "impunity and the lack of action that is etching permanent scars on millions of lives, causing unbearable suffering and shattering a whole generation."

Since mid-April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been engaged in a conflict that has resulted in more than 20,000 deaths and displaced nearly 10 million people, according to the UN.

There have been growing calls from the UN and international bodies to end the conflict, as the war has pushed millions of Sudanese to the brink of famine and death due to food shortages, with the fighting spreading to 13 of Sudan's 18 states.