About 20 kilometres east of the town of ad-Dabbah, in Sudan’s Northern State, and roughly two kilometres before the village of al-Affad, lies al-Affad camp for the displaced. It is here that families fleeing North Darfur have arrived after an arduous journey along the Darb al-Arba’in, the ancient desert route once used by traders and pilgrims.
As the sun dipped on 24 November, Atar’s correspondent was riding in the back of a Steyr truck. When they reached the outskirts of the camp, the driver called out to the passengers: “Who is getting off at al-Affad? We are here. Get down here, take that path, and you will find yourself inside.”
Maybe the berm was built to protect us… or to stop people stealing relief… Honestly, I don’t know.
Displaced woman in al-Affad camp
An earthen berm encircles the camp from all sides. The sight triggered an immediate sense of déjà vu for the correspondent, recalling the suffocating siege of Al-Fashir and the mass killings at its northern entrance, known as Abu Lulu Gate. She asked a displaced woman why the berm had been built. The woman hesitated. “Maybe to stop people stealing the relief we receive, or maybe to protect us from attacks… or maybe…” She trailed off, then added, bewildered: “Honestly, I don’t know.”
Crossing over the berm, the correspondent encountered rows of low shelters made from adarr cane (witchweed). They belonged to earlier arrivals from Al-Fashir who had been relocated to al-Affad about a year ago. Since then, many have become part of volunteer initiatives providing services to the newest wave of arrivals — known locally as “the newcomers”.
Among them was Hajja Yusuf, a displaced woman from Al-Fashir who has lived in al-Affad for a year. She spoke of her decision to leave ad-Dabbah after spending a year there under increasingly difficult conditions. Rent was high, space was cramped, and supporting her young children had become impossible. With every new wave of displacement, she said, rental prices rose further.
Back when ad-Dabbah was still bustling with trade, Hajja had opened a small restaurant in “Housh Mellit”, named after the Darfurian city of Mellit. The area served as a parking site for vehicles arriving from Darfur in Ad-Dabbah, where displaced people were registered before being transported to al-Afad. Business was good, until roads linking Darfur to the Northern State were closed. Trade dried up, and as life slowly returned to Khartoum following the army’s takeover, many traders left ad-Dabbah for the capital.
In al-Affad, Hajja found work on date farms, cleaning groves and threshing dates in exchange for wages, dates and firewood. As Azhari al-Mubarak camp expanded, she joined the Ansar al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyah group and began overseeing a communal kitchen. What started with small numbers soon grew dramatically. “At one point,” she said, “we were slaughtering eight sheep for a single meal.”
Arrivals continue to increase, as does the number of takiyas — charitable kitchens — now numbering 16, each providing two meals a day. Lunch may be rice with meat, aseeda (porridge), or stew with bread, along with oranges — four to six per family. Breakfast is sometimes aseeda, but more often Egyptian fava beans, lentils or stewed beans, served on rotation.
Hajja voiced concern about plans by camp managers to relocate earlier arrivals to a new section and dismantle their permanent witchweed houses on the northern side. Many of these families are large, she said, and a single tent cannot contain them. “I cannot accept living in a tent without a protected yard for my children,” she added.
When Atar’s correspondent visited the camp, it comprised around 700 tents, with new ones being erected in the reception area. The camp stretches for nearly two kilometres, running south from the main road linking ad-Dabbah and al-Affad and extending a few metres beyond the Nile’s bank. It is laid out in rows, each overseen by a displaced volunteer who acts as spokesperson and liaison with aid organisations and authorities, receiving humanitarian assistance on behalf of their group and distributing it publicly in front of the tents.
More than eight mobile and fixed health centres operate in the camp, including the Insurance Centre, the Sadaqat centre affiliated with Ansar al-Sunnah, the Qatari centre, Aid Global, the Red Crescent and the Charitable Organisation for Care and Development. All provide free treatment and refer serious cases to ad-Dabbah Hospital or the Qatari hospital near the al-Affad bridge. According to volunteers, routine deliveries are handled inside the camp, while complicated labour and caesarean cases are transferred to ad-Dabbah.
Despite the trauma they carry, displaced families are attempting to build new lives. Many rush daily to welcome incoming families, scanning faces in the hope of finding missing relatives. Arabic dialects from west and north mingle with those of the Northern State. The camp hums with the rhythm of the hajouri here, a tambour there. In playgrounds, children fill the air with laughter. Music drifts through the tents, offering solace to survivors suffering panic attacks from what they witnessed in Al-Fashir.
They said if the boys were born in the north, they would fight them later.
Salma Hamid, survivor of RSF abuse at a checkpoint
It was in this atmosphere that the correspondent met Isra, a 13-year-old girl who fled Al-Fashir on the night it fell to the Rapid Support Forces. She had remained behind with her aunt after her mother left months earlier. Isra escaped through Abu Lulu Gate with her uncle and aunt. There, she said, guards seized her uncle. After rounding up those attempting to flee, a man held a knife to her uncle’s throat and ordered his soldiers to press their weapons against the heads of Isra and her aunt, forcing them to watch as he was slaughtered.
Isra fell silent before finishing her account. She later said she had begun to recover after receiving support in the camp and had regained her ability to speak after losing it following the killing. She turned towards a celebration, promising to return — but the correspondent could not find her again among the endless rows of identical tents.
Only a handful of families — fewer than ten — managed to reach al-Affad after Al-Fashir fell. Roads were sealed, and the RSF continues to pursue those who flee, forcibly returning many.
Salma Hamid, another survivor, told Atar she fled Al-Fashir for ad-Dabbah while pregnant, carrying one child on her back. At one RSF checkpoint, she and other pregnant women were dragged out and beaten on the pretext that they were carrying boys. “They said if the boys were born in the north, they would fight them later,” she said. Salma survived, reached the camp and received medical care throughout her labour. A midwife stayed with her in her tent through the first week after birth. She still does not know what happened to her mother or sisters.
Before dawn, faint lights flicker inside the tents as people move about with water jugs, preparing for prayer. Voices call out in the darkness — a question, a greeting, a request. Then the imams’ voices rise and worshippers answer “Amen.” Recitation continues until sunrise, followed by girls gathering firewood. Outside each tent, three stones form a small stove, locally called laddaya, used to boil tea, which the camp kitchens do not provide. As the day unfolds, some residents set up small stalls, selling biscuits, fenugreek, coriander, coffee, tea and charcoal — goods not included in aid distributions.
Along the camp’s main road, solar panels power phone-charging stations. One boy, displaced early from Al-Fashir, has turned this into a livelihood, setting up a charging shop and buying a grinder to mill coffee for fellow residents.
Waqia Abdullah, in her fifties, fled Al-Fashir before the city fell. She spent more than a year moving between Zamzam camp, Sallouma, Jefalo, al-Radeef neighbourhood and Abu Shouk camp. During shelling at the livestock market in southern Al-Fashir, she found two young boys sitting beside their dead mother. The elder, Mundhir, was four; the younger, Imran, just two.
Many argue that selling aid is not profiteering. It’s survival.
Displaced resident, al-Affad camp
Unable to help the mother, Waqia took the boys with her. Under siege, she fed them diluted milk for months. Imran’s weight dropped to four kilograms. As conditions worsened, she fled on foot through Hilla al-Sheikh, Qarni and Mellit, carrying Imran on her back until reaching ad-Dabbah, and later al-Affad. She contacted media platforms to search for the boys’ relatives but vowed to raise them regardless, giving them the name al-Hadi Muhammad so their ration cards would not be empty.
Munzir — cheerful and restless — calls every woman in the camp khaltu, “my aunt”.
“My name is Munzir and my little brother is Imran,” he told Atar. “My mother fed Imran and then lay down in the livestock market. My aunt Waqia brought us here.”
The correspondent observed many displaced men with fractures and injuries, while the elderly make up nearly half the camp’s population. Young men are few. Witnesses say many were abducted by the RSF before reaching Hamra in North Kordofan. Pregnant women receive targeted care, while malnourished children are given therapeutic food.
Some women said they returned to the camp from Port Sudan, Khartoum and ad-Dabbah after rent became unaffordable. Following the construction of the berm, only one gate remains. Military personnel inspect every vehicle, preventing the removal of aid. A soldier said the orders came from camp managers from Al-Fashir to stop relief items being sold in ad-Dabbah.
Inside the camp, a blanket costs 9,000 to 10,000 Sudanese pounds; in ad-Dabbah, the same blanket sells for 25,000. A 25-kilogram sack of flour costs 25,000 in the camp and 40,000 in town. As restrictions tighten, frustration grows — many displaced people argue that selling aid is not profiteering, but survival.
