Sudan conflict: BBC hears of horror and hunger in massacre town El Geneina

Few journalists have made it to El Geneina to see its plight, including the aftermath of what were two massacres over a period of several months last year, which the UN says killed up to 15,000 people.

The frenzy of violence, rape and looting is regarded as one of the worst atrocities in Sudan’s brutal conflagration, which has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

We travelled from the Chadian border town of Adre, with the UN delegation, on a journey of less than an hour on a rippling dirt track enveloped in dust, which slices through the desolate semi-desert plateau dotted with half-built or abandoned clay-brick buildings.

A small number of hulking lorries packed with the aid of the UN’s World Food Programme, as well as rickety Sudanese carts driven by horses or donkeys, go back and forth across a border marked by not much more than a few wooden posts and ropes.

But on the other side of the frontier, across the no-man’s land in a dry sloping wadi and along our bleak route, gun-toting RSF fighters in camouflage uniforms patrol this part of Sudan. Some are just young boys who flash cheeky grins.

But, before we left Adre, knowing how hard it may be to gather testimonies inside, we spent time in the sprawling informal camp run by the UN and Chadian authorities close to the border. A vast throng, mainly women of all ages, some cradling children, fill the vast field. It’s a temporary settlement of startling proportions.

Everyone we spoke with was from El Geneina. And they all carried their stories with them as they escaped acute hunger and the horrors visited upon their homes.

“When we fled, our young brothers were killed,” piped up a self-assured 14-year-old Sudanese girl in a rose pink headscarf, who spoke calmly and quietly about terrifying times.

“Some of them were still breastfeeding, too young to walk. Our elders escaping with us were killed too.”

I asked her how she managed to survive.

“We had to hide by day and resume our journey in the middle of the night. If you move during the day, they will kill you. But even moving at night is still so dangerous.”

Her family finally made the hard choice to leave their homeland. Her mother was with her but she didn’t know where her father was.

“Kids were separated from their fathers and husbands,” shouted an elderly woman whose dark eyes blazed with anger.

“They indiscriminately killed everyone – women, boys, babies, everyone.”

“We used to get food from our farms,” chimed in another woman as their stories tumbled over each other.

“But when the war began, we couldn’t farm and the animals ate our crops, so we were left with nothing. “