David Lammy ‘horrified’ after coming face-to-face with war victims

Every day, families cross the dry and dusty route into Chad, fleeing war and famine in Sudan – scenes that have clearly shaken Britain’s foreign secretary.

Under a slanting sun, David Lamy visited the Adre border post on Friday to witness first-hand the impact of Sudan’s civil war, which has erupted as the army and its former ally, the Rapid Support Force (RSF).

Those who make it across the border are often separated from their families in the chaos to escape and are desperate to know if their relatives are safe.

“These are some of the most horrific things I’ve ever heard or seen in my life,” Lammy said.

“More than anything, what I’ve seen here in Chad, on the border with Sudan, are women and children running for their lives – talking about widespread slaughter, maiming, burning, sexual violence against them, the children. And among all of this, everything Hunger, hunger is such an incredible predicament.”

The foreign minister saw dozens of women wrapped in light, colorful shawls and holding children of various ages crossing on horseback.

They looked tired as they sat on their bags, holding the few things they could bring with them on the long journey to safety.

“Alhamdulillah” means “Praise be to God,” remarks Halima Abdallah, when I ask her how she felt about making it across the border.

The 28-year-old is relieved, despite the tragedy she suffered, losing one of her children when she fled Darfur, a western region of Sudan that has suffered some of the most devastating violence of the past 21 months – for the most part, RSF is believed to have been committed.

“I went to El Genena for the first time, but I had to flee again when the fighting started there,” she says, explaining how she was later separated from her husband and two other children.

Aid workers in Adre say they tried to reunite families as soon as they crossed the border.

“Some mothers told us they had to choose which children to run with because they couldn’t carry them all at once,” an aid worker told the BBC.

Some abandoned children have been brought across the border by aid 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 fleeing families and aid workers who received them.

After meeting some of the refugees, he told the BBC: “All these people have stories – very, very desperate stories of fleeing violence, killing their families, being raped, tortured, maimed.”

“I was just sitting with one woman who showed me the burning. She was burned by soldiers up and down her arms, she was beaten, and she was raped. It’s desperate and we have to draw the world’s attention to it and bring it to the world and bring the world’s suffering to the end”.

But he rejected what he called a “hierarchy of conflict” that would seem to put Sudan at the bottom, even though it is currently the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Last November, Britain’s foreign secretary led a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the UN Security Council, which was vetoed by Russia.

“How could you veto the predicament going on here?” he asked, sounding annoyed.

He told the BBC that he now plans to convene a meeting in London of Sudan’s neighbors such as Chad and Egypt and other “international partners to call for peace”.

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

Since the mediation has stalled, the US has subsequently sanctioned generals leading both sides of the war. He also determined that the RSF and its allies had committed genocide.

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

According to UN agencies.

The rate of malnutrition is one of the highest in the world. At a sub-unit clinic in Adre, health workers measure the arm circumference of six-month-old Rasma Ibrahim.

The color-coded tape goes to the red end. The effects of her health condition can last a lifetime. One out of every seven children here in Adre is malnourished.

Britain will continue to press for a ceasefire, Lamy said.

He has already doubled aid to 200 million pounds ($250 million) and is calling on other donor countries to step up.

However, aid agencies are concerned about newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.

A breakdown in support from one of the world’s largest donors will undoubtedly have devastating consequences in crises such as Sudan. The UN is already struggling to meet its goals for much-needed aid money.

An appeal was made for $2.7 billion (£2.2 billion) in 2024, but only 57% of that money was granted.

At the Food Distribution Center in Adre, bags of split yellow peas, millet, sorghum and crates of cooking oil and other supplies were neatly fenced off, as families from a nearby refugee camp queue for their quotas.

The screams of babies strapped to their mothers’ backs fill the air. One by one, families are called to collect their rations.

A man helps lift a bag of dry food onto the shoulder of another, who then hums as he walks back to his makeshift home.

According to local volunteers, the population of Are was about 40,000 before the civil war and has now more than quintupled.

Runaways are among the lucky few here. Just across the border in Darfur, famine was declared in August in Zamzam camp, near the town of El Fasher, which RSF has besieged for more than a year.

On Friday, devastating news broke that one of the last functioning hospitals, El Fasher, had been shot down by a drone, killing at least 30 people. Regional authorities said RSF paramilitaries were responsible, but they did not respond to the lawsuit.

Back in December, the supported Famine Review Committee said the famine had spread to more areas in Darfur as far as Abu Shouk and Al Salam camps, as well as parts of South Kordofan state.

Famine spread despite the reopening of the Adre border, which had been closed by the army on suspicion that it was being used to transport arms to its rivals.

As we left the border, three or four trucks with UN World Food Program banners were slowly rolling down the dusty road crossing into Sudan.

They will provide much-needed assistance in villages, towns and displacement camps across the border. But it is still far from enough.

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