Sudan refugees strain cash-strapped Chad's hospitality

A Sudanese refugee girl, who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region and newly arrived, sits on her family's belongings outside the house of a Chadian family, where they take refuge, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 14, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

There used to be one family in Fanna Hamit's compound, now there are 11 families struggling to get by selling roasted crickets after she took in relatives fleeing the conflict in Sudan.

They are among 90,000 people who have escaped to Chad since fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April - a major extra burden on one of the world's poorest countries.

Fanna Hamit, 58, a Chadian widow who hosts in her compound a family of 11 sudanese who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, washes the dishes while Saboura Ahmed, 30, one of her sudanese refugees guest, parcels roasted large crickets to sell as snacks, in the yard of her house near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad May 11, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Even before this emergency, Chad was hosting 600,000 refugees from its war-torn neighbours and grappling with a fourth consecutive year of acute food shortages. Overall, around 2.3 million people are in urgent need of food aid, the World Food Programme warned earlier in May.

"The extraordinary hospitality of the Chadian government and its people has been demonstrated yet again ... but the scale of this crisis requires more funding to save lives," U.N. aid agency OCHA said in a call for increased international support.

Hamit, a 58-year-old widow with six children of her own, has had to make careful economies to provide for those sheltering in her compound, most of whom arrived in this border village of Koufron with nothing.

Sudanese refugees, who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, are pictured outside the house that belongs to a Chadian family, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Goungour, Chad May 11, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Squeezed into the open-air compound, the women cook together over small braziers in the sand as children play around them.

"They share everything with us: their food, their toilet, their clothes and all the rest," said 78-year-old Kaltouma Yaya Abderahmane, who pitched up at Hamit's door in the middle of the night in late April.

The sudden arrival of large numbers of people has also distorted the market for goods and squeezed water supplies in Chad's remote and arid borderlands.

Kaltouma Yaya Abderahmane, 72, a Sudanese refugee woman who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, sits with her relatives in the space where they set their shelter, in the yard of a Chadian's family house who is hosting them, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 14, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

"Let's not even talk about sugar ... it's doubled in price," Hamit said, also lamenting the higher cost of grains and peanuts.

Tensions have risen over water use, which is traditionally sourced from communal wells. Some refugees at the Goungour refugee camp, south of Koufroun, told Reuters they had been barred by locals from drawing water in a nearby village and had to dig their own wells in dry riverbeds.

Hamit said she tried to help "even the refugees who have set up shelters nearby .... they come to us for water".

Eman Mohamed, 20, a Sudanese woman who fled the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, prepares what she said is Konafa for breakfast, at the yard of a Chadian's family house where she takes refuge, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad May 14, 2023. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

"The situation is tough for everyone."

(Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)