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These Sudanese refugees fled war. Now critical U.S. aid is running out.
Sudanese refugees in the Abutenge camp in Chad, most of them women and children, say they are in desperate need of help just weeks after the US government announced a sharp cut in foreign aid in January.
Fatehia Mohamed Adam is a Sudanese refugee who first fled war in 2023, then lost everything after an accidental fire engulfed this refugee camp on the Chad-Sudan border. HIAS, the refugee advocacy NGO that was ready to help her with emergency services, was unable to do so after the U.S. government suspended its operations as part of massive foreign aid cuts announced in January. We traveled to the remote Abutenge camp in Chad, where many resources for tens of thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, suddenly ceased. HIAS had been providing critical support to the refugees. And while the suspension was lifted in early March, it remains unclear which of its programs will continue to be funded and for how long. One woman, who asked us to conceal her identity for fear of retaliation, told us how HIAS helped intervene after an incident of domestic violence involving her husband. She still lives here with her husband and child, and has been receiving family counseling from an NGO that has been forced to freeze salaries and sessions for her and other survivors of gender-based violence. Almost everywhere in the Abutenge camp, we encountered stories of people who rely heavily on U.S. foreign aid on a daily basis. Schools like this one, run by Jesuit Refugee Services, were a lifeline for more than 32,000 students like Kawsar Mahamat Yacoub before it was forced to close abruptly in January. A month later, some of its teachers had returned to volunteer or work for minimal pay, but more than half the students had already left, and it was unclear how long the school could keep its doors open. As of March, the Trump administration had eliminated 83 percent of USAID programs and 40 percent of State Department grants, citing widespread waste and saying they did not serve U.S. interests. The cuts amount to tens of billions of dollars in total U.S. aid worldwide.
The cuts in U.S. foreign aid affecting Sudanese refugees in Chad have reduced already meager life-saving resources such as food and water, as well as other U.S. government-funded programs, including mental health counseling and education.
“When we told [the students] about the decision to close the school, most of them were crying,” said Aballah Abakar Abdallah, a teacher at the only secondary school in the Abutenge refugee camp, near the border with Sudan.
The school, one of the few remaining concrete structures in the camp for 45,000 refugees, was once funded by a U.S. State Department grant through Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). It was the largest provider of secondary education for refugees fleeing Sudan’s Darfur region. JRS said the cuts jeopardize the education of about 32,000 Sudanese refugee students.
“There are many problems, but we cannot give up education because we have brothers in the battlefield,” said Abdulazim Abdu Abaker, 18, who fled El Geneina, Darfur, in 2023 and is now a student at Abutenge Secondary School. “That is why we are divided: some of us are in education and some are in the battlefield. If we give up education, it will not help the success of our beloved country.”
Earlier this year, the United States accused the RSF and allied militias, a paramilitary force composed mainly of ethnic Arabs fighting for control of the country, of committing genocide against non-Arab Masalit ethnic groups in Darfur.
According to UNICEF, the majority of Sudanese refugees who have crossed the border and are living in refugee camps in Chad are women and children. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has reported widespread gender-based violence in areas of active conflict.
HIAS, a refugee advocacy NGO working in Abutenge camp, has spent nearly two years building trust within the refugee community so that at-risk women can turn to it for domestic and gender-based violence, as well as emergency assistance and funding in the aftermath of natural disasters.
The Trump administration’s order in January to halt work on all programs funded by U.S. foreign aid prevented HIAS from continuing to monitor thousands of refugee protection cases. The organization said it recently received word that the halt order had been lifted, but it was unclear which programs would continue to be funded or for how long.
In February, HIAS, along with seven other groups, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, calling the president’s order to halt all foreign aid “unconstitutional” and the withholding of billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid funding “illegal.” A federal judge ruled in favor of HIAS and the other plaintiffs, but HIAS said the U.S. government has yet to fully comply.
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