Young Sudanese refugees cope with loss, yearn for peace

The baby was just born when war broke out in Sudan. No one knows how old she is because her biological mother disappeared.

The baby was cared for by a 20-year-old refugee, Ghufran Hamed Al-Nour, who is referred to in this report as Deborah.

“I feel like I’m her mother,” Gutfreund said. “I feel sorry for her about what we went through in Sudan.”

The two sit on an old hospital bed in a medical facility at the Lenk refugee camp in the South Sudanese town near the border with Sudan. Because Deborah wasn’t feeling well, they came to the facility for a checkup.

Deborah was taken out of Sudan by a woman fleeing violence. At the border, the charity Save the Children International took her in and handed her over to Gufran, a young woman whose life has been disrupted by the conflict in Sudan.

“I’m going to raise her like my daughter,” Gutfreund said.

“They killed my parents”

On April 11, 2023, a 12-year-old boy traveled from Kenya to Khartoum, where he planned to vacation with his parents. Three days later, fighting broke out. The next day, he lost his parents in the war.

“My mother and father, they went to look for work,” said the boy, identified in this report as John. “They killed my parents.”

These are the tragic stories of Sudanese children who are paying the price of a year-long conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and torn apart countless families.

Most refugees are children

Pornpun Jib, Save the Children’s South Sudan operations director, said most people fleeing war in Sudan are under 18 years old.

“Since the outbreak of the war in Sudan, more than 600,000 returnees and refugees have arrived in South Sudan, crossing the Joda border into Lenk,” Gibb said. “More than 300,000 are children, accounting for more than half of the total arrivals. Of these, Many are unaccompanied or separated.”

John and almost all the children in the camp do not go to school. Most of them spend time in a “safe space” created by Save the Children and its partners – running, playing football and creating art on a large field in Lenk.

“When I came here, I discovered football,” the boy said. “I play.”

This is how most kids keep busy.

Gibb said he hopes that by playing different sports, kids like John can forget the trauma of violence at home.

“To a lot of adults, that may seem small, but to kids, it can mean the world,” Gibb said. “A lot of the people we talked to also told us point blank – they don’t want footballs, basketballs or new clothes. A lot of them just want to go back to school.”

John said he missed his old life.

“When I was in Kenya, I was in school,” he said. “There’s no school here, there’s no money. There’s nothing to eat.”

Unlike little Deborah, who was cared for, John spent most of his time in a safe space run by Save the Children.

No one knows if Deborah’s mother is still alive. But the baby is now about a year old and someone does care for her.

“The most important thing is,” Gutfreund said, “I found her.”