Chad struggles as refugees pour in from Sudan

DW (English)

Chad, one of the world's poorest countries, urgently needs help supporting over a million refugees. The majority of these have fled the civil war in neighboring Sudan.

Transcript

00:00Mariam has reached the border to Chad, and with that, safety.

00:05It's clear she's been through a difficult ordeal to get here.

00:09Thank God I made it this far, but I need security.

00:17Around 150 people cross the border into Chad here every day.

00:22They're fleeing war-torn Sudan, where the struggle for power between two generals and their forces

00:28has left the country facing unimaginable violence, hunger and devastation.

00:34Mariam's first stop in Chad is the United Nations Refugee Agency,

00:38where she'll be registered for a future life in this new country.

00:42Today, Germany's Development Minister has come to the crossing,

00:45her aim to highlight how much aid Chad is contributing to refugees.

00:52Any country would be overwhelmed by this number of refugees.

00:56No region, no country can cope alone.

00:59And that's why the international community must show solidarity here.

01:03It has to give more support to Chad.

01:07Adre is a transit camp just inside Chad's border.

01:11It shows how desperately needed that support is.

01:15Plastic tarpaulins for the 230,000 people living here.

01:22Here the refugees are meant to be taken inland to more permanent camps.

01:28From the onset of the crisis, for us it's important that we find a way for them to create a new life

01:34and not just rely on emergency assistance.

01:37So very quickly we want to support the government and the HCR

01:41in helping refugees in new sites to create a new living

01:45instead of depending on monthly food assistance.

01:48So we want to help them cultivate land, cultivate vegetables that will create an income.

01:54But Chad itself is one of the poorest countries in the world

01:57and is suffering massively from climate change.

02:00Severe flooding alternates with extreme droughts.

02:03In many places in the country there is not enough for the bare necessities.

02:07Over 30% of people live in extreme poverty, without access to clean water and food.

02:13And now more than a million refugees from Sudan need to be cared for here on top.

02:18So that's very challenging in the sense that to find the land and set the camps

02:26where there is no infrastructure at all.

02:28So we have to build completely from scratch to host more than 50,000 people per camp.

02:35And that's expensive. We lack resources for that.

02:39As you know, we are underfunded.

02:42The refugee response plan is financed at the 29% level only,

02:48which is not enough to provide a dignified living condition to refugees.

02:54One thousand kilometres from the border in the capital N'Djamena.

02:59Here Svenja Schulze promises Chad's foreign minister

03:0257 million euros in support from Germany for long-term crisis aid.

03:07The refugees from Sudan are Chad's brothers and sisters, he says.

03:11We don't want refugees to be seen as a burden in our country,

03:16but as an economic opportunity.

03:20Chad has a tough authoritarian leadership

03:23that has close ties with the former colonial power France.

03:26But the government is also looking for new partners such as Russia and Turkey.

03:31It is all about money and influence.

03:34There are reports that the United Arab Emirates are supplying weapons to Sudan via Chad

03:39and thus fuelling the war.

03:41The foreign minister denies that.

03:45I personally don't know of any country that supplies weapons there

03:49and if I knew I would testify here before God that I would say so.

03:55Germany's development minister appeals to all sides.

04:00It is absolutely clear and there are international treaties that everyone has signed

04:05that no weapons should be supplied to war zones

04:08and that is what we are appealing to, that the war here can stop.

04:13For Mariam, peace is the biggest hope.

04:17Everyone is on the run.

04:20I hope that Sudan will be like it was before the war, so that we can return.

04:25But it is likely that they will all have to wait a long time before they can return home.

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