The RSF assault on Zamzam camp over a month ago and escalating violence in North Darfur (MSF comms for background : April 18 and May 6) have triggered more forced displacement to locations inside Sudan and to eastern Chad, despite expensive and extremely dangerous escape roads. Most people fleeing North Darfur and seeking refuge in Chad enter the country at Tine border crossing point in Wadi Fira province, with over 12,000 people crossing in the first week of May. Hundreds of people also reach Adre in Ouaddai.

As access to North Darfur remains complicated for humanitarian organisations and virtually impossible for international media, border areas of eastern Chad have been a special spot to help extremely vulnerable people and shed light on the crisis they flee.

Between April 23 and 19 May over 57,000 refugees (93% of them from North Darfur) have been recorded by UNHCR and the Chadian agency CNARR (source) at the border crossings of Tine in Wadi Fira province and Ouré Cassoni in Ennedi East province. An additional 2,000 new arrivals were also registered in Adre around the same period. The number of refugees who crossed into Chad since the war in Sudan started in April 2023 has now risen to 830,000.

Most of the refugees seen by MSF at Tine and Adre border entries are exhausted and traumatized women, children and elderly. They had very little to eat and drink during their journey across Darfur and report widespread and harrowing violence.

In Adre, MSF continues to run a health post at the border and to support several clinics and inpatient services in different localities of the Ouaddai province to facilitate healthcare for refugees and host communities. Our teams are also currently working on scaling up our activities in the overcrowded Tine transit camp and other camps to cope with the rapidly deteriorating situation.