Running from civilians who got to the border town of Renk

When a devastating war in Sudan reached the Sarah Williams neighborhood in the Khartum capital, she and her children were caught in the intersection.

The bullets broke through their house, the buildings were exposed, and the electricity lines caused explosions.

“We crawled on the ground,” she recalls, holding her one-year-old son. “It was chaos.”

Ms. Williams, a 33-year-old mother of the five-year-old, originally from South Sudan.

She was forced to escape when a civil war broke out in 2013, two years after she gained independence from Sudan to become the newest nation in the world.

But after independence, the euphoria soon dissipated when the struggle between President Salva Kiram and his deputy Rijk Machara caused a civil war, which claimed 400,000 people and forced 2.5 million people to leave their homes.

Among them was Mrs. Williams. After arriving in the fact that it was then a peaceful Hartum, she resumed her life, working as a middle -class maid.

But it was again uprooted after in 2023 in the city broke out between the forces, loyal to the military leader Abdel Fatah al-Burhan and his then deputies Mohammed Hamdan, better known as Hemed.

“The conflict has begun,” says Mrs. Williams. “But later they also started killing South Sudan, though we did not enter into their battle.”

Over the past two years, the Sudan conflict has taken more than 150,000 lives, forcing more than 12 million people from their homes, and turning large parts of Khartum in rubble.

When her house was attacked, she packed her several things and headed back to South Sudan.

However, the conflict has also resumed now when the United Nations (UN) warns that a peace agreement between Kieri and Machar is at risk of destruction in 2018.

Ms. Williams’ journey ended as long as Renka. Once a quiet dusty border city, it turned into a transit center, rising with refugees from both Sudan and its neighbor to the south.

Mr. Williams, who took about five months, wants to return to his hometown of Nasir, in Upper Nile.

However, it is dangerous to go to Nasyr – it is a strategically important port -city along the Sobot River – because it turned into a military zone.

“We are a conflict ahead,” she says the BBC, holding a four-year-old daughter, gently swolving her one-year-old son.

Her voice is stable, but her eyes are heavy – they carry the weight of war, loss and uncertainty.

Government troops and the White Army – militia related to the mill during the civil war – have repeatedly encountered Nasiro, reporting large shelling, ambush and displacement of residents.

Ms Williams did not hear from her family in the city.

“I don’t know where they ran when the contractions began … Or even if they are alive,” she says quietly.

The fighting in South Sudan left thousands of people like Ms Williams who were in the Renk transit center. The camp is crowded, placing more than 9,000 people – three times more than it was developed.

The fugitives are provided with a small number of available agencies to buy food, but it lasts only two weeks, and they are expected to affect themselves.

Sarah says she and other refugees were forced to cut trees to sell as firewood so they can raise money for food

“I used to collect firewood and sold it to buy flour, but there is nothing left in the woods. There is no forest to collect and sell,” says Mrs. Williams, a reminder of the environmental degradation caused by the war.

Corrugated shelters in the camp squeeze up to 15 people into the room. Others build fragile houses from sticks, fabrics and torn bags. The overcrowding causes disease, hunger and despair.

Help agencies seek to move families to safer parts of South Sudan, where people have “stronger communities or family ties, opportunities for existence and best access to services,” – says Vija Suri of the International Migration Organization (moms).

Hundreds are waiting under the scorching sun to sit on metal boats aimed at milk. The journey takes two and a half days down the Nile River. Passengers are sitting on luggage or on a boat floor.

Among them is Mary Dan, who fled with the water of Madani as well A rigid battle playground in the Sudanese conflict.

“There was only one day when we crossed the border,” she says. “We only have 16. We didn’t have money – but we had God.”

She squeezes a bunch of documents – a ticket of her family from Renko.

Medical services are stretched to their borders. The Joda Border Clinic – built of iron sheets – is the only functional medical center in the area.

“More than 600 babies have been born here since the war has begun,” the medical worker says. “But we can only work throughout the day, no funding for night changes.”

The cholera epidemic was announced in Renk last October. It spread to most of the South Sudan, including the Juba capital, causing more than 450 deaths.

Tatek Wondimu Mamecha, an emergency officer of the World Health Organization in South Sudan, warns about growing risks.

“Despite the fact that the cholera flash is controlled, we do not leave the forest. Now the malaria breaks out, and when the rainy season, it shoots,” he says BBC.

G -n teta adds that pulsation effects US Presidential Administration Donald Trump in US Presidential Administration Donald Trump are devastating.

“Five of our partners either stopped services or reduced operations by 50%.”

Hospitals such as referral Renk have lost half of their staff, including surgeons, obstetricians, pediatricians, making great tension on the rest of the doctors.

“The installation manages from 350 to 400 patients a day,” says Mr. Tetette.

The refugee crisis in Renko leads to a sharp attention that tens of thousands of people are trapped between two conflicts, and parts of South Sudan are no longer a safe shelter for people who escape from the two -year conflict in Sudan.

The tension has grown in South Sudan since March, when the murder was put under house arrest after being accused by Kira allies in support of the armed groups – his party’s claim.

George Owino, chairman of the monitoring body, created in the framework of the world in 2018 to help in its implementation, warned that the last clashes “threaten the basis of the agreement”.

He tells the BBC the main problem that political leaders continue to command the rival troops without integrating them into a single national army.

“The connection between politics and military force is still intact,” says Mr. Ovin.

“If the leaders do not agree, it quickly turns into an armed confrontation – exactly what was supposed to prevent.”

In 2013, the civil war began after Kieir fired Machara Vice-president, accusing him of a coup desigure, while the murder made a counterattack that Kieir was a “dictator”.

The devastating civil war ended after the 2018 peace deal, which saw the vice president.

“Earlier in the presidency there was more dialogue. It decreased,” says Mr. Ovin.

The African Union (AU) has not yet been able to return the peace process in its efforts, while Uganda opened troops to South Sudan to reinforce the Kira position.

The Machara party says the deployment undermines South Sudan’s sovereignty and the 2018 peace deal.

Both Uganda and the government are defending the deployment, saying it is under a long -standing security agreement between the two countries.

However, the deployment shows how bad the government power is to power, while fears are growing that a large -scale civil war can recover.

And across the border in the Sudan, the civil war continues the fury, and the general dawned on the formation of a competitor’s government.

His step comes, despite the fact that his forces lost control of Khartum after heavy fighting. Currently, the city is a burned shell, with bombarded and blackened buildings.

Ms Williams says she does not intend to return to Khartoum, and decided that it was better to try to restore life in her country, “even if the situation is bad.”