By Coletta Wanjohi
Alhida Hammed has let go of the last vestiges of hope – his face now mirrors the stoicism of someone resigned to his fate.
The Sudanese refugee is being treated for a gunshot wound at neighbouring South Sudan's Renk County Hospital as he reflects on living through another year of pain that felt like a lifetime.
His ordeal started in April 2023 when fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), spreading quickly through the heart of the country.
Hammed's life — and that of millions of other Sudanese — has been like a nightmare without end since.
"Our village was engulfed in flames," he says of the day he left behind his home in Sudan's Blue Nile state.
"Everyone was running in different directions. We were all displaced, reduced to living under trees. I have no desire to return home. Home is no longer a home — it is filled with bad memories."
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which is trying to scale up humanitarian assistance for droves of refugees still arriving in Renk, reports that over 5,000 people from the White Nile, Blue Nile and Sennar states crossed into South Sudan each day since the beginning of December.
"We have added 14 tents around the hospital to make space for wounded patients arriving at Renk County Hospital," says Emanuele Montobbio, MSF's emergency coordinator in Renk.
"There is no place for other tents in the surroundings, while patients and their families keep coming to the hospital."
UNHCR estimates that until December 22, the number of displaced from Sudan stood at over 12 million. Over three million of them have sought refuge outside the country.
Chad, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and South Sudan have all received refugees from Sudan.
MSF estimates that 80,000-odd new arrivals in South Sudan need medical attention. Just a few dozen of them have undergone surgical interventions and vaccination in recent weeks, while over 100 wounded patients, many of them with serious injuries, still await surgery.
Worsening food insecurity
For those who have remained in Sudan, hunger is as potent a threat to their existence as the war has been.
On December 27, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said 78,000 people south of the capital, Khartoum, received food and nutritional assistance for the first time since the conflict started.
Fighting in that zone had prevented access to humanitarian aid for over 20 months.
A recent report by UN agencies warns that more than 24.6 million people across Sudan, which is more than half of the surveyed population, are now experiencing acute food insecurity.
Of these, 8.1 million are in a "state of emergency" while at least 638,000 people are in the "catastrophe stage".
"The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is deeply concerned about the worsening food security situation in Sudan, particularly in Zamzam IDP camp and other settlements in conflict-affected areas, where conditions are rapidly deteriorating," says FAO's director of emergencies and resilience, Rein Paulsen.
With the end of 2024, Sudan has missed the harvest season, when food availability is usually at its highest.
"A protracted famine is taking hold in Sudan," warns WFP's food security and nutrition analysis director, Jean-Martin Bauer. "People are getting weaker and weaker and are dying as they have had little to no access to food for months and months."
With the war still raging, Sudan might also miss out on the coming planting season.
"Millions of young lives hang in the balance. The delivery of life-saving therapeutic food, water and medicines can help stop the deadly malnutrition crisis in its tracks, but we need safe, sustained, and unimpeded access to reach the most vulnerable children and save lives," says UNICEF’s director of emergency operations, Lucia Elmi.
Türkiye's peace initiative
The African Union insists that Sudanese stakeholders must find an internal solution to the problem.
While efforts by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Sudan's neighbour South Sudan have not yielded a breakthrough,
Türkiye is trying to ease Sudan's tensions with the UAE. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Sudan's military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan last week and offered to mediate to resolve the issue. This was just days after President Erdogan brokered a deal between Ethiopia and Somalia.
The UAE’s involvement, primarily driven by strategic interests such as securing Red Sea shipping lanes and investments in Sudan's natural resources, has made the regional situation more complex.
While Sudan values the UAE's economic contributions, Abu Dhabi’s policies have raised questions about external influence in Sudan's internal affairs.
"We hope that the initiatives put forward, including the proposal of the wise and experienced leader Erdogan, who expressed his readiness to mediate between Sudan and the UAE, will be successful," Sudanese foreign minister Ali Youssef has been quoted as saying.
He blamed RSF for Sudan's troubles, pointing out its refusal to comply with the "Jeddah Declaration" terms signed in May 2023.
DRC's unending turmoil
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been battling its own set of problems, with clashes between government forces and non-state armed groups continuing for close to two decades in South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri.
UNHCR states in its 2025 outlook that protracted conflict has created "widespread violations of human rights and devastating incidents of gender-based violence".
The report points out that the conflict has already led to the displacement of over seven million people within the country and forced more than a million to seek asylum beyond its borders.
Angola, Burundi, the Republic of Congo, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia are sheltering refugees from DRC.
The African Union Peace and Security Council has expressed concern that armed rebel groups like M23, Allied Democratic Forces, ADF, and Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have "worsened insecurity and suffering of civilians in Eastern DRC."
Other armed groups that the UN has identified as causing insecurity include CODECO, Mai-Mai Kata Katanga and Malaika.
"Too frequently, the map of violence aligns with that of natural resources," Bintou Keita, who heads the UN stabilisation mission in DRC, told the UN Security Council.
Keita noted that the M23 rebel group seized control of a gold mining site in Lubero, North Kivu, after an offensive in Pinga in late October.
DRC spars with Rwanda
DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels, which the Rwandan government denies. Conversely, Rwanda blames DRC for supporting the FDLR rebels against its government.
Rwanda admits to deploying troops and missile systems in eastern DRC to safeguard its territory, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border.
Efforts to have the two countries bury the hatchet hit a snag after President Paul Kagame of Rwanda failed to attend a December 15 tripartite meeting in Angola's Luanda that was expected to yield a diplomatic truce.
The African Union's designated mediator, President Joao Lourenco of Angola, only met his DRC counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi.
"At the ministerial meeting in Luanda on December 14, no consensus was reached between Rwanda and DRC on a commitment to direct talks with the Congolese rebel group M23 for a political solution to the conflict in Eastern DRC," Rwanda said in a communique.
The lack of a concerted effort to halt the depredations of armed groups in DRC remains the primary concern, as civilian lives and property bear the brunt of the mayhem.
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