Sudanese women in Chad grapple with trauma of wartime violence | Humanitarian Crises News

With almost no mental health care available, Sudanese women in Chad create their own support networks.

The brutality of Sudan’s war is spilling across the border into Chad, where women and children fleeing violence are arriving deeply traumatized and with little access to psychological support.

Eastern Chad has become a refuge for thousands of people fleeing the conflict that began in 2023 and has since become the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Millions of people have been uprooted, many of them bearing the physical and emotional scars of abuse, attacks and the continuing terror of war.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris visited the Tulum refugee camp in eastern Chad, where a small group of Sudanese survivors have formed a support circle, one of the few places where victims can talk openly about what happened to them.

Basma and her sister are among them. Survivors of sexual violence are still trying to recover from the trauma they suffered two months ago when they attempted to flee al-Fashar.

He says militia affiliated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stopped him and tortured him for several days.

“May God expose and punish them. God willing, the day of reckoning will come for us. They held me and my sister hostage for five days and tortured us,” Basma told Al Jazeera.

The RSF captured el-Fashar, the capital of North Darfur state, in late October after a campaign that witnesses and rights groups described as mass killings, kidnappings and widespread sexual violence.

The UN aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said the city had become a “crime scene”, while Amnesty International accused RSF fighters of committing war crimes there.

The UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into “atrocities” committed in al-Fashar, which was under an 18-month siege when it fell to the RSF on 26 October.

breaking the silence

Others who fled to Chad lost their entire families in the chaos. Many people still don’t know whether their loved ones have survived.

“Many members of my family are presumed dead. My uncle, my mother and children are all missing,” said Zaina Ibrahim, a Sudanese refugee.

With professional mental health care almost non-existent, women’s informal support groups have become a lifeline.

Authorities say there is only one psychiatrist in this part of Chad and very few psychologists working with humanitarian organizations, not enough to care for the thousands of people displaced by the war.

The session is led by Fatima Fadul, a long-time refugee and survivor herself. She works to break the cultural silence around rape and abuse, and urges women and girls to speak out openly despite stigma.

“As Sudanese, we face stigma: mothers at home put pressure on the girl, telling her not to speak about rape or to remain silent. We raise awareness and encourage our sisters and mothers to speak about rape to claim their rights. When you remain silent, you cause internal psychological damage, which leads to diseases,” said Fadul, president of the victims’ support group.

They believe that it is necessary to acknowledge trauma, yet the need far exceeds the resources available. For every woman who receives even minimal assistance, hundreds of other women are left without any help, counseling or hope for justice.

For Basma, Zaina and countless others spread across eastern Chad, survival now means confronting the memories of the violence long after they escaped.