Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, was moved to tears after she met refugees fleeing to Chad to escape the civil war in Sudan and heard their “devastating” experiences of sexual violence.
The Duchess recounted her private meetings with female survivors, who shared harrowing accounts of violence, including stories of rape in exchange for safety and food for their families. “What they do to the children is … I can’t even use the words,” she said. “These women have no option but to leave.”
Sophie became the first member of the royal family to make an official visit to the central African country when she spent three days there, including one at the border with Sudan, before leaving on Monday afternoon.
One poignant encounter was with Hadidah Abdullah, a refugee in the town of Adre, who cradled her 9-month-old baby, Bayena. Abdullah revealed that they had traveled 60 kilometers to reach safety. The town is now home to around 230,000 refugees, many drawing parallels to the previous genocide in Darfur more than 20 years ago, which resulted in 300,000 deaths.
The region is currently embroiled in conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and is also facing famine, with millions at risk of starvation. One woman arriving at the camp during the Duchess’s visit, accompanied by five children, said she had not seen her husband since the conflict erupted in April 2023. Others recounted harrowing experiences of the RSF forcibly recruiting young men and boys, and executing those who resist.
The Duchess, who has visited numerous conflict zones—including Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—has focused her work on supporting victims of sexual violence in war. After meeting five women at a hospital in Adre, one survivor recounted her family’s traumatic experience in the city of Geneina, where they witnessed RSF atrocities, including rape and looting. She described a climate of fear: “If you tried to go out … some can kill you or threaten sexual violence. More than 10 people were killed at a time, and they took whatever they wanted from the houses.”
The survivor added that her teenage son had been taken by the RSF, along with her brothers, and when she finally escaped, she saw bodies stacked “like a wall” in the streets.
Sophie, 59, was in tears as she spoke to the media following the private meeting.
She said: “people are having to exchange food and water for sex, for rape. That is violence that is being enacted through conflict. It is being used as a bargaining tool.
“These women have no option but to leave. And, even then, they’re lucky if some of them 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.”
She added: “What they do to the children is… I can’t even use the words.”
A motorcade with a military escort then took her a further hour and a half’s drive, over rough terrain, to Adre, where more than 220,000 refugees, mostly women and children, are living in a camp after fleeing following the conflict between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary RSF which broke out in April 2023.
Sophie, accompanied by representatives from charity Unicef, visited the border crossing, where she heard between 400 and 1,000 people cross daily.
One group was greeted by the royal after arriving from Sudan on a horse and cart.
With the help of interpreters, the duchess spoke to the two women, who had travelled 50-60km with their children, including a baby and a toddler, and asked if they knew they would be given food and shelter after crossing into Chad.
On a visit to the registration centre at the border, she knelt down to speak to a mother-of-five, who had a small child lying on her lap and a baby strapped to her back, who told her she had travelled for 10 days before arriving.
The woman, like many of the refugees, did not know where her husband was and had not seen him since fighting broke out.
From the border, the duchess visited an integrated services centre to see the work of different organisations who support women and children in the camp.
After her emotional meeting with the sexual violence survivors, Sophie visited a session run by Plan International, which runs mobile protection units to try to identify children in the camps who need help.
Fatima Abaulgasim, 15, and 13-year-old Mayada Abdoulgadir Oumar, both refugees from Sudan, were among children who took part in the session.
Speaking through an interpreter from Plan International, Fatima said: “We are here but our situation is still awful. We need support for education and support for healthcare.”
Mayada added: “Education here is zero, we need education.”
The duchess is a champion of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda (WPS) and a supporter of the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI).
Earlier this year she became the first royal to visit Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, where she met President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska to discuss how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
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