David Lammy ‘horrified’ after meeting Sudan war victims face-to-face

Everyday families flee war and famine in Chad, across a dry and dusty path into Sudan – scenes that have apparently shocked Britain’s Foreign Secretary.

Under the sweltering sun, David Lemmy visited the Adre border post on Friday to see firsthand the impact of Sudan’s civil war after it fell to the army and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Those who do make it to the border are often separated in the chaos to flee their families and are desperate to see if their relatives have made it safely.

“It’s some of the most horrifying things I’ve ever heard and seen in my life,” Lemmy said.

“When I have seen here in Chad on the border with Sudan, have I seen women and children running for their lives – widespread slaughter, mutilation, burning, sexual violence against them, taking their children and all this, And for everyone, there are children fleeing for their lives, and all this, famine, hunger – such incredible plight.”

The External Affairs Minister saw dozens of women draped in lights, multicolored shawls and children of various ages crossing on horse-drawn carts.

They seemed to be sitting on bags holding some items that they might have brought with them on the long journey to safety.

“Alhamdulillah” means “Praise be to God,” commented Halima Abdullah when I asked her how she felt she had made it to the border.

The 28-year-old finds relief despite the tragedy she has faced losing one of her children as she fled Darfur, in the western region of Sudan, which has faced some of the most devastating violence in the last 21 months. Most of it is alleged to have been determined by RSF.

“I first went to el-Genina, but I had to flee again when fighting broke out there,” she says, describing how she became separated from her husband and two other children.

Aid workers in Adre say they are trying to reunite families after crossing the border.

“Some mothers have told us they have to choose which child to walk because they can’t carry them all at once,” an aid worker told the BBC.

Some abandoned children have been brought across the border by humanitarian workers and placed in foster care while efforts are made to find their families.

Standing on the Chadian side of the border, Lamy spoke to families who were fleeing and to aid workers who were receiving them.

After meeting some of the refugees, he told the BBC: “All these people have stories – very, very, very desperate stories, of violence, of murder in their families, of rape, of torture, of mutilation.”

“I just sat with a woman who showed me burn marks. She had her arms burned up and down by soldiers, she was beaten and she was raped. It’s desperate, and we need the world’s Attention must be brought to that and the suffering must be brought to an end.”

But what he described as the “hierarchy of conflict” has placed Sudan at the bottom, even though it is currently the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

In November last year, the UK Foreign Secretary made a motion for a ceasefire in the UN Security Council, which was vetoed by Russia.

“How can you stop the misery going on here?” he asked, sounding extremely enthusiastic.

He told the BBC that he now planned to call on Sudan’s neighbours, such as Chad and Egypt, and other “international partners” to a meeting in London to broker the peace.

Several attempts at peace talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia have failed to resolve the conflict.

As mediation stalled, the US subsequently sanctioned generals who went on both sides of the war. It also determined that RSF and its allies had committed genocide.

More than 12 million people have fled their homes since fighting broke out in April 2023.

According to UN agencies, there are more than 50 million civilians caught in the middle of the bitter fighting, nearly half of whom are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

Malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. At a tented clinic in Adre, health workers measure the circumference of six-month-old Rasa Ibrahim’s upper arm.

The color-coded tape goes all the way to the red end. The effects of his health condition may last his entire life. Here in Adre, one in every seven children is malnourished.

Lammy said the UK would continue to push for a ceasefire.

It has already doubled aid to £200m ($250m), and is calling on other donor countries to step up.

However aid agencies are concerned by the announcement by US President Donald Trump of a new 90-day freeze on foreign aid.

A disruption in support from one of the world’s largest donors would no doubt have devastating consequences on crises such as Sudan. The UN is already badly struggling to meet its targets for aid money.

In 2024, an appeal for $2.7bn (£2.2bn) was put out to support Sudan, but only 57% of this money was provided.

At the food distribution center in Adre, boxes of split yellow peas, millet, sorghum, and cooking oil and other supplies are neatly arranged on top of tarpaulins as families from the nearby refugee camp queue for their quota. In form of.

The cries of babies tied by shawls fill the air behind their lined-up mothers. One by one, families are called to collect their rations.

One man helps lift a sack of dry food onto the shoulders of another, who then makes his way back to his home.

According to local volunteers, Adre had a population of about 40,000 before the start of Sudan’s civil war and has now grown to more than five times that number.

The refugees here are among the lucky few. Across the border, in Darfur, famine was declared in August in the Zamzam camp, near the town of el-Fashar, which the RSF has besieged for more than a year.

In December the UN-backed Famine Review Committee said it had spread to more areas—including the Abu Shuq and al-Salam camps in Darfur and parts of South Kordofan state.

The famine spread despite the reopening of the Adre border, which had been closed by the military, it being used to transport weapons to their rivals.

As we left the border, three or four lorries carrying banners with the United Nations World Food Program slowly crossed the dusty road into Sudan.

They will provide much-needed assistance to villages, towns and displacement camps beyond the border. But this is still far from enough.

“We have to step up now and wake up to this huge, huge crisis,” Lammy said.