A story of resilience and strength from Sudan

On April 15 2023, clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum spread across the nation and quickly escalated to become one of the world's most devastating humanitarian crises.

Almost a year and a half later, a staggering 25 million Sudanese people require humanitarian support and more than 10 million have been forced to flee their homes. 

In August, famine was declared in a North Darfur refugee camp sheltering hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and the latest report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) projects that 21.1 million people across Sudan will face acute food insecurity between October 2024 and February 2025.

While the majority of people displaced during the violence remain within Sudan, more than 2 million people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries such as Chad and South Sudan.

Entire families have been forced to start their lives again from scratch in unfamiliar surroundings, often in the face of debilitating hunger and disease.

In spite of this, the determination to make the best of such a desperate situation unites people in places like South Sudan's Wedweil displacement site, where we met Amani.

Amani was living with her family in Nyala, South Darfur, with her five children and her husband Alrashib - a retired soldier - and working as a housekeeper when the conflict broke out.

Soon, the situation had become so fraught that Amani and her family had to leave Nyala, making their way across the border to the Wedweil camp.

“When we arrived here in Wedweil, I thought that my money is going to run out, and I don't have any work," Amani tells us. "So I thought to build something that could provide even for my basic life needs. I went to the market, and I bought some grass sheets like this one, and made a small shelter."

Amani knew what she had to do. Out of such difficult circumstances, with support hard to find and resources scarce, she did something remarkable.

"I started my restaurant.”

Amani's restaurant is a hub for those around her, a community space that has become popular not just with her fellow Sudanese refugees, but locals and humanitarian aid workers too.

“I am a refugee, I have to work to earn my living," she insists. 

"My restaurant is popular with everyone, those who are living around the settlement, the host community, refugees, and even those who are working with NGOs.”

Amani - who not only sells hot food, but also meat, beans, lentils, porridge, and kisra, a type of flatbread - is supporting not just her husband and five children, but also family members who remain in Sudan.

“I feel like I am responsible for my community, for my kids, because I will be the one supporting them to complete their education. And I have even some family members, my relatives, those who remain in Sudan, those who are vulnerable, who are not able to leave. I support them and meet their needs.”

While Amani is the perfect embodiment of resilience and entrepreneurship in the face of unspeakable difficulty, her struggles - of those of her fellow refugees - go on.

She has urged those in power to give more consideration to the challenges faced by women leaving Sudan, and knows that overcoming those difficulties is not possible without support.

“My first message is for NGOs; look at the refugees in Wedweil and bordering countries to Sudan, like Chad and other countries," she implores. "We are really suffering, we need your support, we need to improve our lives. Our problems are so many, we want to solve them; without you, without your help, we cannot solve these problems alone.”

Finally, Amani calls on her fellow refugees to find work, wherever they can. “I hope you are safe wherever you are, and I’m encouraging you to move to places you can seek jobs, whether it’s casual work of full employment. 

"We are Sudanese, we are not jobless... It is not the habit of Sudanese people to beg from anyone.”

We were the first organisation to initiate a response to the Sudan crisis through cash assistance to people in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, where the Wedweil camp is located. Throughout 2023, we reached over 461,000 people through all of our emergency interventions in South Sudan.

More than 60% of the people we reached in South Sudan were women. 

In Sudan itself - where we are working in West Darfur, West Kordofan, South Kordofan and Red Sea State - our programmes enable us to provide assistance around health, nutrition, water and sanitation, livelihoods and food security.

In 2023, we reached 346,377 people, providing life-saving health and nutrition support, cash transfers, and emergency supplies.

We have also been supporting displaced people across the border in Chad, providing essential supplies, shelter and health and nutrition support.

We have treated thousands of patients in our health and nutrition clinic and distributed hundreds of non-food items and dignity kits, including items such as blankets, pots, mosquito nets and sanitary towels to Sudanese refugees.