THE Duchess of Edinburgh made a historic trip to meet war victims at a refugee camp on the border of Sudan – becoming the first member of the royal family ever to visit the stricken region.
Sophie Wessex wept as she heard the “devastating and appalling” stories of women who have been subjected to horrific sexual assaults, carried out by soldiers who regularly use rape as a terror tactic in the war which shows no sign of reaching an end.
To escape the daily brutalities, the women fled their homes to the Adré refugee camp in neighbouring Chad, Central Africa, where they met with Sophie and shared their harrowing accounts.
Sophie could not hold back tears as she separately embraced five female survivors she met at a hospital after they had described the atrocities they had been subjected to.
The women told how they had been brutally raped in exchange for food and water.
They also chillingly revealed their daughters were being subjected to similar, heinous sexual assaults.
After kneeling on a rug in a tent with the women as she listened to their accounts in private, Sophie, 56, then spoke to a small group of press outside with tears streaming down her face.
With her hands still trembling, she said: “I daren’t even describe to you what they’ve been doing to children.”
Clutching a tissue to wipe her eyes, the Duchess took a few minutes to compose herself and said: “It’s not just about the sexual violence, which is horrific because they’re having to exchange food and water for sex, and if they don’t they kill them.
“These women have no option but to leave.
“And even then they’re lucky. If they can get away, because some of the villages and towns that they come from, they can’t even leave their houses any more.
“If they leave their houses they get killed.”
Asked by The Sun about a meeting she had earlier with a “silent” young girl on the Sudanese border, Sophie, added: “It’s heartbreaking. You have no idea what they have been through.
“That little girl was so silent and it worried me because of what I’ve just heard now.
“It really worried me. Because I haven’t shared with you some of what they told me in there, which was why I was quite wobbly when I came in.
“I can’t share – I don’t think you would even want to print it in your publications, to be honest with you.
“But what they do to the children is… I can’t even use the words.
“So I can only assume that they are young.
“That little girl that we were talking to – now that I’ve spoken to them [the women] I worry what she has either encountered or what she has witnessed. Because what they have all witnessed is complete atrocity.”
One of the five women Sophie spoke to told how she had seen bodies piled “like a wall” as her family escaped her home city of Geneina, a city in Darfur that has witnessed some of the worst recorded atrocities of the war.
The Adré refugee camp has a population of 230,000, the same as Portsmouth.
It is home to the main border crossing from Chad into Darfur, a crossing that sends vital aid to those in the war-torn region.
It is at risk of being closed by the Sudanese government next month because they allege weapons are being smuggled across to help their enemy the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
During her visit, Sophie, who has two children, Lady Louise Windsor, 20 and James the Earl of Wessex, 16, made a trip to the crossing – where active combat has been reported as little as 12-miles away – so that she could meet the people and hear their stories first-hand.
She welcomed a family of eight as they crossed the border on a pony-drawn cart.
On it was a mum, Hadidah Abdullah, clutching her nine-month-old baby Bayena.
Hadidah said: “They came to our house, sometimes they beat us. My husband had all his money stolen.
“If we went out to the farm we would be beaten too.”
The fearless Duchess’s decision to journey to one of the most dangerous corners of the world – an area where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against all travel – was made to ensure the dire situation is not overlooked.
After arriving in Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Saturday, Sophie took an early morning flight on Sunday to Farchana on the other side of the country.
The region is such a hotspot for conflict and violence, that she was then escorted not only by Royal Security detail, but also by an armed military protection team in a motorcade of 18 vehicles on a 90-minute journey over rough terrain.
News of her three-day visit was kept tightly under wraps to ensure maximum safety.
The media was banned from reporting on the trip until Sophie had safely departed Chad at the time of this publication.
But with the world’s attention on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the Duchess was determined to not allow the stories of Sudan’s innocent victims go unheard.
Experts warn that Sudan, which is barely functioning after civil war broke out between the government and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces, could soon be facing one of the world’s worst famines in decades.
The residents of Adré have welcomed the refugees coming across the border – but Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world, and already limited resources are being stretched to breaking point.
Up to 1000 refugees arrive at the transit camp every day.
The homes they hurriedly erect consist of sticks and leaves covered with tarps or plastic sacks.
The Sudanese military previously closed the border at Adré, eastern Chad, in February because they alleged weapons were being smuggled through the border to their enemy.
The closure strangled the flow of aid trucks carrying life-saving supplies to those in need in Darfur at the same time as the country faced the deadly famine.
It was opened again in August after mounting international pressure and aid was able to cross, providing much-needed food supplies to the people facing starvation in the Darfur region.
But next month the crossing is due to shut to aid trucks, in what will be a disastrous setback for those in desperate need.
It is hoped that the international attention drawn by Sophie’s visit to the region could help to delay the reclosure.
Demonstrating her support for the displaced women, girls, men and boys, on Sunday the Duchess also called for further international commitment to help them in their plight.
The UK this year pledged £97million in aid to those impacted by the bloody conflict.
At a garden reception at the embassy in N’Djamena on Saturday evening, the Duchess said she hoped to “shine a light” on the situation in the region in the hope of gaining more support for those in dire need.
Sophie is no stranger to drawing attention to the situation of women and girls who have been impacted by conflict-related sexual violence.
She announced she would champion Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) on International Woman’s Day in 2019.
Since then, she has visited countries with ongoing issues, including Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Iraq, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She also visited Ukraine earlier this year.
But yesterday (SUN), in a heartfelt plea Sophie urged people to do more for the victims of the conflict in Sudan, she said: “It’s fallen from everybody’s consciousness, and I understand that because there are so many things that are going on in the world right now.
“So our attention is being led by other conflicts, and that’s understandable. But this is a human catastrophe that is vast and Chad is having to pick up the pieces when it can ill afford to do.
“They’re doing it with a good heart, and we need to help them to do more.”
According to medics in the Sudan region, the number of people killed in the conflict so far could be between 20,000 and 150,000.
LIFE ON THE CAMP
By Rachel Dale
THIS weekend Sophie made the 2,800-mile journey from her Bagshot Park home – a 120-room Grade-II listed mansion that she shares with Prince Edward and their two children – to the border of war-torn Sudan.
Life in the refugee camp couldn’t be more different than that of the UK.
The 227,000 residents live in unavoidable squalor, packed into hastily assembled shacks made from whatever was available, which are no match for the regular monsoons and blistering sun.
Children kick footballs through the dusty mazes of makeshift tents while seeking scraps of food, or anything they can find that might be worth the few pence it costs for a modest meal of wheat flour and groundnut
Eight-hour-long queues form around dribbling water taps in the morning, with women and children standing by their plastic water holders in the relentless 40-degree heat. Once they get to the tap they collect just enough water to cook one small meal, and maybe wash their babies.
Survival is the only thing on anyone’s mind – children receive no schooling, and women struggle to find work. Those who do are forced to work back-breaking construction jobs or make bricks to sell to people in the nearby city.
But their undefeatable spirit is also clear to see. Many adults share a chat and a smile over 5p cups of tea and coffee outside temporary cafes, and there is a palpable community spirit.
A camp version of a high street has even been erected with wooden stalls selling groceries, onions and nuts are displayed on a red cloth.
There is a hairdresser with a broken mirror hanging from a plank of wood next to a crate that is used as a stool. And a sweet shop selling green lollipops and colourful balls of candy is manned by four small children who wave at passersby.
On the camp what little there is to spare is shared, whether that be a bar of soap, some water, or just a gossip and a joke.
But despite their stoicism, these people need help . Sophie’s mission is to shed light on the unbearable conditions those who have fled the conflict in Sudan are forced to ensure, and offer some hope to those who have lost everything.
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