Gedaref (Eastern Sudan) -

Naked and barefooted, they marched in the mud for a day to reach "Taya" on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border. From this border point, and with the same stubbornness, Ethiopian refugees from the Komnt and Qumuz nationalities penetrated 35 kilometers to Basinga in Gedaref state.

Although 3 weeks have passed since the new refugees fled the war in the Amhara region to Sudan, they have so far been without permanent shelter, clothing and safe water.

The refugee, Qunota, "22 years old", from the village of Shenfa in Amhara, broadcasts his complaint to Al Jazeera Net, saying that they urgently need clothes and shoes.

He says that they fled their village (Shanfa) without carrying any belongings after a violent tank attack launched by the Ethiopian army and the Amhara militias on 7 villages of the Coment.

"We walked for long hours on bumpy roads during the rain until we reached Taya on the border of Sudan," he added.

Paving the road linking Umm Rakouba camp and the "Gadarif-Dawka" road in order to facilitate the transportation of refugees (Al-Jazeera)

constant suffering

Reaching the borders of Sudan was not an end to the suffering of the new refugees. In light of the poor roads and the difficulty of deportation during the rainy season, the local authorities of Basanda, of Gedaref State, were forced to transport the elderly and women via tractors to Basanga and ask young people to walk in the mud for a distance of 35 kilometers.

According to Mamoun Daw al-Bayt, executive director of Basanda locality - about 150 km southeast of the city of Gedaref and 410 km east of the capital, Khartoum - his locality is scarce in resources, and with the help of organizations, it was able to transport the elderly and women only by tractors.

The official is waiting for the organizations to provide more funds to transfer about 1,000 refugees from the Komnt in Basanda to the local presidency in Basanda, 22 kilometers away, and about 1500 refugees from Qamuz from Taya to Basanda also, a distance of 35 kilometers.

Although the distances seem short, transportation through it is very expensive due to the heavy rains and the lack of paved roads in the muddy and agricultural lands.

Commercial shops in Umm Rakoba camp, where infrastructure and services are weak (Al-Jazeera)

Camps and camps

The town of Basanda will include the third camps of Ethiopian refugees after the camps of Umm Rakobeh (90 km south of Gedaref) and Al-Tunaidaba (130 km southwest of Gedaref).

Therefore, the Executive Director sees the necessity of paving the road linking it to Umm Kharabit on the continental road (about 45 km).

Humanitarian workers find it difficult to reach the refugees in Basanga, and are unable to reach others on the border with Ethiopia waiting to be transferred to Basanda.

Despite the apparent poverty of the people of Basanga, they are doing their best to host the refugees in the temporary shelter in the town's school.

Women from the host village were wandering with food to be carried among the refugees in search of a refugee who had experienced a harsh situation upon her arrival in Sanga.

Abdullah and Ishaq of the Change and Services Committees in Basanga say that despite the fear of the health conditions resulting from the overcrowding of about a thousand refugees in a small school, the committees dealt with the situation according to the available capabilities.

They say that hosting refugees is a "human honour", but the poor services make the region urgently need the intervention of organizations to pave roads and rehabilitate health services, especially those related to motherhood and childhood.

Two members of the service change committees in Basanga and a complaint about the slowdown in the arrival of humanitarian organizations and government support (Al-Jazeera)

experiences with refugees

Because Sudanese towns near the border have tried to host Ethiopian refugees several times in earlier times, they are good at absorbing the first shocks of asylum by providing temporary shelter and food until the organizations intervene.

However, what worries the host communities is the slowdown of the international community this time in intervening and responding to the requirements of the refugees, who are putting pressure on services, which are already either non-existent or poor in these areas.

According to the head of the Services and Change Committee in Basanda Ibrahim Omar, they had previously hosted Ethiopians as refugees in the 1990s and 2017.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that the youth of Basanda have prepared cooking workers and the town's school to host the refugees who will be transferred from Basanda until the construction of the permanent camp is completed.

The Chairman of the Committee calls on the federal and state governments to expedite the provision of electrical supply, especially after the completion of the transmission lines.


slow response

So far, the organizations' intervention seems slow. For about 3 weeks, they have not been able to transfer the Komnt and Qumuz refugees to the permanent camp in Basanda.

The Executive Director of the locality confirms that the region needs urgent intervention in order to be prepared to host thousands of refugees, especially since there are about 3,000 refugees on the border separating the border and 50,000 are residents of 7 villages in the Ethiopian Amhara region who have been displaced from their villages and are now wandering on their faces and may cross the borders of his locality at any moment. .

He says that the continental road linking Gedaref and the dumps itself needs treatments, stressing that the rains and torrential rains have cut off the road by eroding the Saraf Said bridge, 70 kilometers southeast of the city of Gedaref.

In addition, he says that Basanda, which is preparing to host the third permanent camp for Ethiopian refugees in Gedaref state, urgently needs to rehabilitate the water station and 3 wells in the area on which the camp will be built, and maintain a seasonal water dam that has collapsed.

Distributing food rations to Ethiopian refugees stranded on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border (Al-Jazeera)

waiting for hope

Officials and residents of Basanda locality are waiting for international organizations to extend their hand to pave roads and rehabilitate services, similar to what happened in the area around Um Rakouba camp, which has hosted Tigray refugees since December 2020.

Although Basanda is only 45 kilometers from the continental road "Gadarif - Gallabat", the road to it is difficult, and some rain valleys can only be crossed by tractor.

Um Rakoba camp for Ethiopian refugees, nine months after its establishment, seemed closer to the city, where Ethiopian music was emanating from cafes and housing became more organized.

In order to facilitate access to the Umm Rakoba area - which includes several villages besides the refugee camp, which shelters 20,000 refugees - the humanitarian organizations paved the road linking the area to the town of Duka, where the asphalt road comes from Gedaref.