Ethiopia 2024 – DW, RSI, Africa & Affari

A young volunteer announces with a megaphone that there will be medical consultations for pregnant women today after registration. In Kurmuk , on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, hundreds of people are registering to seek asylum after difficult journeys to flee the devastating Sudanese civil conflict that has resulted in more than 10 million refugees. 

A woman helps her elderly father lead the way to a tent by dragging him with his stick. A boy drew airplanes on the tarp covering his shelter and someday hopes to catch them to get home without walking as he did all the way here.

“I have no words to tell what happened, but I loved my husband very much and continue to love my country very much even though it is now destroyed.” Treza fled Khartoum along with her 6 children after her husband died from a stray bullet during firefights between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces.

“I have been through other wars in Sudan before, but I think this one is impossible to stop. There are too many rebels fighting and then there is no real reason. If there was an understandable reason, we would have sat down at a table and found peace.” Says Amza who has just arrived after a hasty escape from Sinnar state. For days he is trying to call his family members for news. One of his brothers has died and another has been captured by the “Janjaweed.”

The rainy season increases the already severe challenges experienced in refugee camps in Ethiopia . Despite the authorities’ efforts, the means to respond to the emergency are severely underfunded. Ethiopia already hosts more than one million refugees from other previous crises and must deal with 3.5 million internally displaced persons caused by the conflict in Tigray that ended in 2022 and other ongoing violent rebellions in Amhara and Oromia.