Strains on Egypt and Chad as Sudan’s Refugee Crisis Grows

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief. The highlights this week: Senegal’s top court strikes down Macky Sall’s election delay, Kenya’s president wants Raila Odinga to get the top AU post, and Gabon sells off Ali Bongo’s Parisian property. Are you interested in receiving Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday? If so, please sign up here. No End in Sight for Sudan’s War Refugees Almost 11 months into a war between the country’s military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, aid agencies warn that Sudan is facing the world’s fastest-unfolding refugee crisis. The fighting that began on Apr. 15, 2023, has no end in sight; yet, Sudan’s needs are competing for attention with conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. With warnings of famine on the rise, about 25 million Sudanese—half the population—are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, and current funding is woefully insufficient to help them, according to the United Nations. An appeal made by the United Nations for aid to civilians in Sudan last year was less than half funded. Nearly 8 million people have fled their homes in Sudan since April, including about 700,000 who have arrived in neighboring Chad and half a million in Egypt. Official refugee camps are struggling to keep up with the pace of new arrivals. Sudanese refugees outnumber locals by more than 2 to 1 in Adre, a Chadian border town about 25 kilometers from the capital city of Sudan’s state of West Darfur. Adre now hosts 150,000 refugees—compared with a local population of 68,000 people—and barely has enough food and clean water available for them. Aid agencies say more shelters, medicine, and basic supplies are desperately needed. Most refugees who have arrived in Chad fled targeted violence by the RSF against the non-Arab Masalit population. The threats include sexual violence; there have been numerous accounts of women and girls being raped, sold in markets, and forced into prostitution by the RSF and various local Arab militias. In many ways, the atrocities are a repeat of the civil war that began in Darfur in 2003. About 400,000 people fled Darfur to eastern Chad after that conflict erupted more than two decades ago and many have never left, bringing the total Sudanese refugee population in Chad close to a million. Chad is also hosting refugees from Cameroon, Nigeria, and the Central African Republic amid its own political crisis over the legitimacy of military rule under junta leader Mahamat Idriss Déby. The impact on neighboring countries is not sustainable, Bottomley warned. The influx of refugees into Egypt coincides with the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, and it has struggled to cope. An escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in Rafah could also increase Egypt’s refugee burden by forcing displaced Palestinians into its territory. The RSF has made significant gains in the conflict, seizing towns and cities in Sudan’s breadbasket states and the state’s capital. “The war doesn’t look like it will have a clean victor anytime soon,” Michael Hanna, the U.S. program director at the International Crisis Group, told FP. The African Union (AU) launched the Africa Club, an alliance of African-owned financial institutions, to address challenges being faced by African nations in attracting investments for economic development. In a statement, the AU announced that the group will include the African Export Import Bank, African Trade and Investment Development Insurance, and other institutions that together hold more than $53 billion in financing and investment. AU officials are preparing to form a more uniform and coherent infrastructure between member states ahead of the G-20 summit next year, following its admission as a permanent member of the group. Since losing a Supreme Court case to overturn the 2022 election outcome, defeated Kenyan presidential candidate Raila Odinga has been a thorn in President William Ruto’s side. Members of Ruto’s camp are reportedly backing Odinga’s bid to become African Union Commission chairman next year. Senegal’s presidential election could be held as early as March after the country’s Constitutional Council ruled on Thursday to overturn President Macky Sall’s controversial decision to postpone the vote. The country’s election authority ordered Sall to quickly organize elections and step down by April 2, when his mandate ends.