Front Burner - In Chad, inside camps for Sudan’s refugees

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Sudan’s civil war is now the worst displacement crisis in the world, with more than 12 million people currently displaced from their homes. Earlier this year, the outgoing Biden administration designated the war a genocide. This war includes countless proxies fighting over billions of dollars in natural resources, access to key shipping routes along the Red Sea, and control of one of the oldest countries in the world. Longtime journalist Michelle Shephard has just arrived from a 10 day reporting trip to the Sudan-Chad border, for The Walrus magazine. There she met families fleeing massacres, and women who crossed the desert on foot to escape sexual violence. She returns with a rare look inside a crisis the world has turned away from.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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have the trusted expertise and solutions you and your customers deserve. Contact your dedicated underwriter today. For simple to complex and everything in between, intact insurance. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Plesson, and just a note before we get started that this episode will include descriptions of sexual violence. Earlier this month, we brought you an episode on the Civil War in Sudan, a years-long conflict fought between the leader of the country's military and the leader of a notorious paramilitary group. Two men, countless proxies, fighting over billions of dollars in natural resources, access to key shipping routes along the Red Sea, and control of one of the oldest countries in the world. The violent fallout from this war was officially designated a genocide by the outgoing Biden administration. the first such determination made in years.

Long-time journalist and filmmaker Michelle Shepard has just arrived from a 10-day reporting trip to the Sydney's border for the Walrus magazine. She spoke with victims of one of the worst displacement crises in the world today, and one which much of the world has ignored. I was saying that the road was really good. I am Kaltun, Adam Muhammad.

I am Raviji. She's saying that The road was really difficult They find many people are being beaten In front of the race Some of women are being raped Violence from different levels Physically

Physically Abuse Harassment Like everything was really so worse In the road You don't have to ask her this But I'm just asking you Is the baby from the sexual

Michelle's reporting brings the war into sharper focus. In these camps, she met families who walked for weeks, girls as young as 13 who survived sexual violence, and doctors who watched their communities hunted. Their testimonies describe a pattern of war crimes that echo almost exactly the genocide which took place in Sudan's Darfur region 20 years ago. Michelle, thanks for being here. Thanks for having you, Jamie. So, as I mentioned, you spent 10 days reporting from two refugee camps in Chad,

which lines Sudan's western border. These camps are kind of improvised, doing their best to handle the enormous flux of refugees and displaced people coming from the interior of Sudan, often walking for weeks to make it out of the country. And can you tell me about these displaced people, camps and what life is like inside of them? Sure. You know, I was really shocked by just how primitive they are. So Audrey was the first camp I was at. It's right on the border. It's a temporary

camp. It's a transit camp. It wasn't supposed to be one there. But basically when the war started, refugees came over the border and started setting up. And so now the population is somewhere over 200,000 people there, if you can imagine. The camp is, because it's not an official camp, and I've reported from other refugee camps around the world and Kenya and Pakistan, and they do tend to look kind of the same. You know, they're run by the UNHCR, but nothing was as primitive as this. I mean, it's literally sticks put together with cloth or plastic over top. It's quite crowded in certain areas. If it weren't for really Doctors Without Border, Meds on Saint Frontier, who helped support my trip to go there as well, they would have.

very, very few services. I mean, they've put up water towers. They have medical facilities there. I was there after the rainy season. It's upward of 100 degrees in the day. I can't even imagine during the rainy season. There was a cholera epidemic at that time. And apparently it was just really horrific. Wow. I want to get into some specific interviews that you did a little bit later. But just first, broadly, can you tell me about who was in these camps? Where were they coming from? What groups were they part of? What kind of abuses and violence had they been subjected to? Yeah, they've come from pretty much all over Sudan, but those that I spoke to mainly were from the Darfur region, which is right along the border there. And as you mentioned in the intro, I mean,

these people walked for days, many of them. There is a famine in various parts of Sudan right now, So imagining that as well, walking with like no food, very little water. They were escaping. Some came right at the beginning of the war, which was April 23. Some that I met had just arrived a few weeks prior. They're trying to get people out of that camp to more permanent camps inside Chad. So most people are only there, I say only. People are there for up to two years and then get to another camp.

And they're fleeing all sorts of violence. bombing, drone attacks, shooting. The sexual violence is incredible. I've never covered a conflict where that has been used so widely and so horrifically. Yeah, I met some incredible survivors of that. And then also fleeing a famine. I mean, just the number of people who have died from starvation and the fact that that withholding food is being used as a weapon. You know, So that's incredible. That's something my piece is going to focus on a little bit, how increasingly we're seeing that in wars. We saw that in Gaza, too. But it's definitely being used there as well.

The Civil War itself, Sudan Civil War, We covered it in some detail earlier this month, but just for people listening, here's the short version. Sudan is still reconciling the 2004 Darfur genocide. What began as a rebellion by the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, demanding an end to discrimination and marginalization, was met with a brutal crackdown. Khartoum's forces aided by local Arab militias, known as the Genjavid, launched a campaign that destroyed entire villages. By 2005, the UN estimated 300,000 killed and millions displaced,

one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The president who oversaw it was overthrown in 2019 by a youth-led revolution. Those not already on the streets rushed outside to celebrate. To see Al-Bashir's stepping down is enough for us, says this woman. Oh, our young people, This is such a joy. His fall left these two men vying for control, a general named Abdel Fata al-Burhan,

who leads a Sudanese army and a general named Hamedi, whose paramilitary carried out much of the violence in Darfur. They ruled together uneasily, and as that relationship broke down, the country slid into civil war. This is a war about billions of dollars of natural resources, control over this ancient nation, but in many ways it is also a struggle

between these two soldiers vying for control and authority. And can you tell me a little bit about the relationship shared between these two men and whether these leaders figured into the conversations and the camps?

What were people saying about them? Yeah, I mean, that's a really good summary. But, yeah, 2019 was the important turning point for Sudan. And as you said, there was this popular uprising similar to, you know, the Arab Spring uprising that both you and I covered when we were at the Toronto Star.

It hadn't happened in Sudan. government was overthrown. And it was overthrown in part because there was a military coup as well. So these two generals that you cited, who are now warring, were sort of the most two powerful generals in the country. And at the beginning, they were sharing power and they were ruling. And essentially what happened is they had a falling out, and it was a struggle for power, and they turned on each other.

The militia's powerful leader, known as Hamedi, has been an ally of the country's military chief, Abdel Fata al-Burhan, but had a falling out over how his troops would fit into the country's army, sparking this internal war. But it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of it. It's very much, of course, there are huge players in this, but it has been described as a civil war in the past. And it really, I don't think that's an accurate description in some ways because it is such a proxy war. It is all the, so many countries around are benefiting from it. the UAE in particular, which is backing the RSF.

In terms of those that I interviewed, they were fleeing the violence of the RSF, which is really an offshoot of the John Deweed from 20 years ago. So in terms of them talking about the two generals, we didn't get into those specifics with those who had fled, but they would say one mother that I was talking to at a malnutrition center, her run by MSF. You know, I said, why are you here? And she simply answered, the Arabs forced me to. So the Arabs being the what they would say about the RSF and the former John Jouid. Because really at the heart of this, too, it is, and it means a genocide happening. And it's, and many of the minority

ethnic groups are being targeted. During the Darfur genocide 20 years ago, there was this huge celebrity-driven social movement around it, right? Like, organized and driven by the likes of George Clooney and Bono. We want there to be some humanitarian effort and there to protect the people who have nothing to do with this political process, who are going to die. The Canadian actor Ryan Gosling used to wear T-shirts with Darfur scrawled across them to award shows and these red carpet events. And I wonder, why do you think there's not that same attention or?

awareness today really feels like this conflict is being ignored. I know. I've been thinking about that so much. I mean, if you're of a certain age, you know about Darfur. Like just that, you know, word alone brings up so many images about the horror back then, but also, as you said, this advocacy and, you know, George Clooney flying to Sudan. Where's George Clooney now? I think there's a few reasons. One is simply that you know, with Gaza and Ukraine going on at the same time, the world seems to only have the capacity to, you know, pay attention to one conflict. Partly, it's about the lack of coverage. Their cell phones and all communication has been cut off in some of these besieged cities.

So as I said earlier, if the offenders hadn't been recording the slaughter themselves, we wouldn't have even known about it, or we have to rely on these satellite images, which is incredible. This kind of reporting is expensive. And, you know, also with the decline in media, this backlash against media, declining resources, there's simply not that many people who can go. The only way that I could go as an independent journalist

was, you know, writing for this magazine, you know, thankfully being able to do things with CBC. But once I was there, I actually did, you know, for lack of a better word, what you call like an, in bed with doctors without border, because they're so desperate to get news out, they see the suffering. As an insurance broker, your customers count on you. From the simple, turnkey business quote to the highly complicated unique risks that require

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striving towards new heights and you can help us keep climbing Donate at Lovescarbro.ca.com. Okay. Let's talk about some of the people you met the innocent civilians, the victims of this fight for money and power. This is brutal stuff. I'll just say that we're about to get into. I guess one of the first interviews we should go through is a 20-year-old girl named Israel-Din. And I just want to be clear in saying that the voices that people are going to be listening to here are the Sudanese translators that were with you. that were working with doctors without borders. They're kind of, they're translating this in real time in the camps. So Israel was in one of the camps with her mother, sister, and two younger brothers. They told you that they saw women being raped and beaten on the long journey into Chad. And just, can you tell me about what led this family out of Sudan?

Yeah, her interview was so stunning. I'd already spoken to a bunch of families and Jamie was awful. You hear one story and you think, oh, that's the worst thing I've heard. and then the next family would come. Like, that's the worst thing I heard. And then Isra started telling her story. They fled. They lived in Elfasher.

And they get many years there in that fashion. And then when the war started in fascia, they left Fashir going to Zamsam. And they went to an internally displaced persons, an IDP camp in ZAMZam. And that camp had at one point up to 700,000. I mean, it was just enormous. And these are people fleeing from various parts of Sudan where the fighting's breaking out. Zam, food was scarce, was terrible there. So the war broke out in April.

They fled there and lived there for a year until April of this year when the RSF slaughtered those in Zamzam. And it wasn't an attack that made the international headlines as Alfasher just did. but from my understanding was, you know, equally brutal. There was only one organization, international organization, left there. MSF actually had had to pull out earlier. They went in and killed the doctors there. So they fled that. As they were fleeing, they went to another camp that's known as Tuila

and then eventually made their way to Chad by foot when they were fleeing to Tohila. her father was shot dead, which is very much what happens to many families when they're fleeing. I mean, these refugee camps are predominantly actually women and children because most of the men have been killed. They suspect their father as one of the military, so because of that, he's been shooting and he's been killed. Was it in their home or in the streets? What happened?

Can't be Shares. they were coming from Zam-Zam to Tovila. I asked, you know, what could you do? She said, well... When he'd been killed, they just left him like this there. They didn't bear him. So, because the time was so hard, and even you can't have minutes to be there

and have that process, so they just left him like this. My understanding from what she said is then they took those who were around, the women and children, sort of interrogated them. I believe some of the women were sexually assaulted. And then they told them to turn around and run. And they got on top of those vehicles with the mounted weapons, and they just shot. It is a gun that way they put in the car.

The gun they put in the back of the car. Yes, yes, yes. Like on the top of a four by four. Yeah, yeah. Wow. I'm so sorry. And whoever made it, it made. evil evil um next you spoke to two survivors of sexual violence uh we're going to withhold

their names due to very obvious concerns over their safety uh these conversations were particularly heartbreaking uh one of the people you're speaking to you realize is 13 years old and she is carrying a five-month-old baby a newborn how old is your baby uh have baby umbrokum Yeah, five months. Five months. Oh, that's so cute. Um. Now you get me crying too.

No, it's good to cry. We should cry about this. It's horrible, yeah. It's rape. And you come to realize that this little girl was a victim of rape. And the baby that she is carrying was a product of that assault. You don't have to ask her this, but I'm just asking you. Yeah. Is the baby from the sexual assault?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And tell me what you heard from her. So it's this center within the camp that is, it's actually a Sudanese-run center for survivors that MSF supports as well. And I walked in and actually, I didn't have my recorder going yet because I didn't want to walk in with my mic out. But when I walked in, it was actually kind of a joyous scene, like all these women, the music was blaring, and they're making crafts that they're going to later sell. And everybody in that room was a survivor of violence. So I spoke to one woman first who helped run the center, and she was a survivor. And then, as you say, this little girl, little girl came up.

and oh man the trauma on her face was so clear and she was like pulling out a thread on her dress the whole time and made very clear like she didn't have to talk I didn't want to retramatize her you know but she really wanted to and then I realized oh she's 13 she's a minor and ethically I don't feel great about this like so I asked the other woman who I just spoken to like would you know if her mom is here or you know a guardian and and that woman said oh No, she's my daughter. Tell me. She's mother. Yeah, this is your daughter? Yeah. So here I am looking at two generations of women who have survived this. She, her mother had actually fled to the camp earlier after surviving.

Thought her daughter would be safer back with relatives. And one day she was in the market. RSF soldier pulled her into a shot. So she said, one of her, from him have knife, and others have a gun. And after that, he said, if you talk about anything about this, told your mom or something, I can kill you. So she didn't. And then she became pregnant. And eventually, you know, told her mom and they got her to the camp.

but and this little baby girl her daughter was just the cutest little thing she was so sweet and every all the women clearly were helping her and loving her and that baby yeah was shown a lot of love Yeah, when we were going through all of your interviews and our producer Matt was kind of collating all of your interviews, he was noticing that you spoke to a lot of women located at the bottom end of the countries. social hierarchy, they're not members of like the aristocratic class, right? They're not women from the capital city of Khartoum. They were mates, domestic workers, women working odd jobs, women that were already kind of on the periphery of society in some ways. And that is except Dr. Jude, who's a doctor you spoke to in the camps. And can you tell me a little bit about her?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people who had money and influence are not in the camps. You know, they could get out in other and are living elsewhere. But Dr. Jude works actually with MSF. She fled and then sort of made her way to one of these clinics and said, you know, I'm a doctor. Can my services be used? And so she started at the beginning as a health practitioner and then just recently, you know, started working as a doctor, which is so wonderful because, of the different dialects there and she really is connecting with her patients and actually to that end

the translator that you heard earlier too he also is a survivor right he came as a refugee as well and then started working with MSF she was incredibly strong and articulate and very much wanted to wanted to speak and it was you know just within minutes really of our interview that she broke down when I mentioned Alfasha, the latest assault, because, you know, clearly everybody is impacted by this. Everybody has been impacted personally or knows somebody who has. You've been seeing what's happened in the last. Yes.

So hard, by the way. So hard. Sorry. And she was one of the few interviews I was able to do in English. And she, you know, I can't remember the example. that quote, but she was so articulate and saying, what else can I do? No, I really want to...

Yes, I want to share this. Share this to the world. Okay. Because it's the simple thing that I can do it. I'm in the Shadhi. I can do nothing for the people at Sudan. Nothing I can do for my people. You're doing a lot here anyway?

No. For people in Sudan, we cannot do anything. We can do anything just for the people here. We can support them. But for the people of Sudan and for our country, nothing we can do. Nothing we can do. So unfortunately. Allah may help us to support this.

Yeah, we were, myself and the MSF communication specialist I was with, we were all sort of crying by the end. Yeah, she was really amazing. Well, one thing that struck me about Dr. Ajid was how she talked about ethnic, And the way that it underpins the war, Sudan has a long history of ethnic hierarchy, political power concentrated among lighter-skinned, Arab communities in the North, while many in the South and in the interior, including groups like the Masalit, which is Dr. Jude's community, are non-Arab and darker-skinned. And she told you about how she was hiding her identity, about mercenaries asking her what tribe she belonged to. And from what you saw and heard in Chad, how central does race and ethnicity feel to this conflict, especially given that both the Darfur genocide and this new campaign have largely targeted non-Arab groups in and around Darfur? It's central. I mean, it was central 20 years ago. It's central today. It's very much a genocide

in that sense. And that has been a lot of the struggle. In her case, she told this, you know, harrowing story of, yeah, having to lie, to lie about who she was to get that. out. He said, you, you, the army will kill you and will kill my kids. If someone asked you in the road, do not say you are a salad. Anything, I said, no, you are your kids, you can say whatever you say, but me, I'm a salad. And I keep saying this. I said, time, again, I collapse. Because I know the road, we will face a lot of things. Okay, I said, okay, no way, we have to leave. And she was, again, lucky. I think she has, you know, a little bit of survivor's guilt, which she should not have, but so many people, you know, pooled together their

resources to get her family out. And she is now, you know, safe. But it was, it was touch and go on the route. And had she been discovered of her true ethnicity, no doubt she would have been killed. that you spoke to in the camp is citing some kind of prior episode or incident of violence, right? They're running from that. And in a lot of ways, these accounts are part of a broader trend in the region of civilians fleeing westward away from violence. So civilians in Ethiopia's Tigray region are fleeing west into Sudan from one historic campaign of violence into an entirely other one, right? Civilians from Sudan are fleeing west from Sudan into Chad. Samira Umar is building a perimeter wall around her new home.

She's one of 300,000 Sudanis in the Iriba area who have taken refuge in Chad because of the fighting in their country. If they continue west, they end up in Africa-Sahel region, which has been the home of at least six successful coups between 2020 and 2024. And if they go south, they end up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the DRC and Rwandan paramilitaries have been in a violent. standoff over the country's mineral wealth. And in some ways, there is no way out. These are people flanked by war on all sides. Yeah. You know, where is the international urgency to help solve these conflicts, to help create a pathway for these people? Well, I don't think it's not there. I mean, years ago when I was still at the star, I covered the Central African Republic, which is in the region too. It is a really troubled region. And I guess, you know, the simple answer is,

A lot of people don't want these wars to end. That's certainly one of the problems with Sudan that all the parties that are involved are vying for power and getting rich. And it's the Sudanese civilians in population that suffer. But, you know, a very cynical sense is, you know, those lives just don't matter on the larger scale. There's not the kind of diplomacy that there should be.

There's not the kind of resources that there should be. And Africa, you know, as the whole continent, it has become really, especially in the last five, six years, really important to a lot of different regions. I remember covering Smalley for years and you saw a huge, you know, Turkish influence, and then you saw a Chinese influence. And now my understanding is so many countries in these troubled regions have all these players trying to, you know, as I said earlier, pick a winner or, you know, to benefit. I mentioned, we've talked about how the outgoing Biden administration labeled this a genocide. But I want to end today by talking about

Canada specifically, because we have not done that. We have recognized atrocities as genocides in the Middle East. Myanmar's genocide of the Rohingya. Parliament recognized China's alleged genocide of the Uyghurs, though the Prime Minister and Cabinet did abstain from an official vote. But in Sudan, why do you think Canada hasn't done anything similar here? Well, you know, as you know, declaring a genocide is, even though there's very strict legal definitions and it's clear, it always becomes very political. I haven't actually done the reporting in Ottawa to know exactly why that is. So it would just be me surmising. But if I, you know, if I had to do that, it's, you know, diplomatically not worth it. It hasn't.

it hasn't hit the agenda. The UAE is important to Canada. Perhaps, you know, the UAE does not consider this in a genocide. So that certainly has to play in to some degree. But, you know, it's interesting because in a way, too, Canada, I feel, you know, does have the power as a middle power to take a stance on some of these, to lead the field, you know, in times, if not diplomatically, then at least with humanitarian aid with the loss of U.S. aid. I mean, Canada could fill that role. And I don't know if you had them on the show, but a CBC reporter, Brian Stewart just wrote a memoir

about the famine, partly, one of the stories he covered so well was about the famine in Ethiopia many years ago. And it was CBC's coverage that put that, CBC and BBC, that put that story on the agenda. All across northern Ethiopia, famine is. along each road and at the gates of every town. By the hundreds of thousands, peasants are fleeing the worst drought in memory.

Unknown thousands are dying along the way. It's feared close to a million could die within months unless the world responds with a massive relief effort. Apparently, you know, Prime Minister Malaruni was crying when he looked at the footage. That footage from CBC later was a part of live aid. where billions were spent. Again, you just don't see that.

I haven't seen that from Canada in a long time, and we could be a leader on this, and we're just not. Okay. Michelle, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right. That is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poissom. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.