In Chad, inside camps for Sudan’s refugees

Summary

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Front Burner (CBC)

Episode Summary: In Chad, inside camps for Sudan’s refugees

Air Date: November 27, 2025
Host: Jayme Poisson
Guest: Michelle Shepherd (Journalist & Filmmaker, The Walrus)

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Overview

This episode delves into the catastrophic humanitarian crisis resulting from Sudan’s ongoing civil war, focusing particularly on the experiences of refugees who have fled to camps in Chad. Host Jayme Poisson interviews veteran journalist Michelle Shepherd, just back from a 10-day reporting trip to the Sudan-Chad border. The conversation covers the brutality of displacement, the pattern of war crimes (including sexual violence), ethnic targeting, and the overwhelming lack of international attention compared to past crises in Sudan.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Scale and Conditions of the Refugee Crisis

• Primitive Camps:
  • The largest camp near the Chad-Sudan border, Adré, has swelled to over 200,000 people. Unlike official UNHCR camps in places like Kenya or Pakistan, these are mostly makeshift shelters made of sticks, cloth, and plastic ([03:10]).
  • Medical services, water, and basic necessities are mainly supplied by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF).
  • Recent cholera epidemics and extreme heat make survival grueling ([03:10]).

Who Are the Refugees?

• Mostly from Darfur:
  • The majority of those interviewed were fleeing Darfur, often after weeks on foot, with little food or water ([04:41]).
  • Violence includes bombings, drone attacks, and widespread sexual violence.
  • Famine and deliberate starvation are used as weapons of war, echoing similar atrocities in other recent conflicts (notably Gaza, per Shepherd) ([04:41]).

Background: The War and Its Protagonists

• A Genocide Repeating Itself:
  • Shepherd and Poisson recap Sudan’s long struggle with ethnic violence, notably the 2004 Darfur genocide. Today’s civil war is a brutal contest for power and resources between Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Sudanese Army) and Gen. Mohamed "Hemedti" Dagalo (Rapid Support Forces, RSF), with roots in the infamous Janjaweed militias ([06:42]-[09:10]).
  • Shepherd argues the war is less a true civil war and more a proxy conflict, notably with significant support for the RSF from the UAE ([09:10]).
  • Refugees generally speak of “the Arabs”—the RSF and associated militias—as their persecutors ([10:20]).

Comparing Attention: Then and Now

• Neglected Crisis:
  • The Darfur genocide once spurred global campaigns (e.g., George Clooney, Ryan Gosling) ([10:40]).
  • Today, conflict fatigue, media cutbacks, and competing crises (Ukraine, Gaza) have left Sudan’s latest disaster largely ignored ([11:01]).
  • Lack of on-the-ground media presence means much of what filters out relies on secondary sources or perpetrators’ own digital documentation of violence ([11:01]).

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Telling the Human Stories

Israel Aldean’s Family ([14:41]-[17:41])

• Flight and Survival:
  • Fled from El Fasher to an overcrowded IDP camp (Zamzam, ~700,000 people).
  • Following a massacre by RSF in the camp, her father was executed on the road as the family fled—his body was abandoned out of necessity.
  • The remaining family, mainly women and children, escaped a mass shooting from RSF vehicles with gun mounts.

“When he been killed, they just left him like this. They didn’t bury him. So because the time was so hard and even you can’t have minutes to... to be there and have that process. So they just left him like this.”
—[Sudanese Translator relaying Israel’s words, 16:53]

Survivors of Sexual Violence ([18:16]-[21:47])

• Child Victims:
  • Shepherd interviews a 13-year-old rape survivor holding her five-month-old baby, the product of the assault.
  • The survivor’s mother, also a victim, describes the attack and threats from an RSF soldier.

“How old is your baby?”
—Michelle Shepherd ([18:16])

“Five months. So cute. Now you get me crying too. No, it's good to cry. We should cry about this. It's horrible.”
—Michelle Shepherd ([18:24])

“RSF [soldier] rape her. At that time, she said, one of them, half knife and also half gun. And after that, he said, if you talk about anything about this doll to your mom or something, I can kill you.”
—Jayme Poisson, relating the translator’s account ([20:45])

Dr. Jude: A Doctor, a Refugee, a Survivor ([22:29]-[24:45])

• Resilience Amid Despair:
  • Dr. Jude, a survivor, now works as a physician in the camps for MSF.
  • She describes hiding her Masalit ethnicity to survive escape and expresses survivor’s guilt, feeling powerless to help others still at risk.
  • Emotional moments as Dr. Jude insists on bearing witness to the crisis.

“No, I really want to... I want to share this, share this to the world... It’s the simple thing that I can do. I can do nothing for the people at Sudan. Nothing I can do for my people.”
—Dr. Jude (Khaltum Adam Mohammad), ([24:02]-[24:23])

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Ethnicity, Genocide, and the Nature of the War

• Central Role of Ethnicity/Race:

  • The targeting of non-Arab, darker-skinned groups (especially Masalit) by RSF/Janjaweed is a clear continuation of the patterns seen 20 years ago ([25:41]-[26:24]).
  • Dr. Jude tells of the life-or-death necessity of hiding her tribe’s identity to escape Sudan ([25:59]).

• Geopolitical Traps:

  • Civilians trapped by conflict: fleeing west into Chad (itself unstable), or south into DRC (site of other wars)—no truly safe escape ([27:29]).
  • Regional powers and foreign interests perpetuate conflict for strategic or economic gain ([28:15]).

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International (In)Action and Canada’s Role

• Lack of Urgency:

  • Shepherd argues that ongoing wars persist, in part, because influential actors are invested in their continuation—and African lives are deprioritized on the global stage ([28:15]).
  • Diplomatic inertia and lack of resources hamper effective response. “A lot of people don’t want these wars to end... those lives just don’t matter on the larger scale.” —Michelle Shepherd ([28:15])

• Canada’s Silence on Genocide:

  • Despite past genocide recognitions (Yazidis, Rohingya, Uyghurs), Canada has not labeled Sudan’s crisis a genocide. Reasons likely include diplomatic ties (esp. to UAE) and lack of public/media pressure ([30:04]).
  • Shepherd notes the possibility for Canada to fill the void left by US disengagement, at least in humanitarian leadership, but laments there’s little sign of political will.
  • Points to historic Canadian media coverage (e.g., Ethiopia famine, Live Aid) as a reminder of what’s possible when attention is galvanized ([31:48]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

On the Scale of the Humanitarian Disaster

“Nothing was as primitive as this. It’s literally sticks put together with cloth or plastic over top. It’s quite crowded in certain areas. If it weren’t for Doctors Without Borders... they would have very, very few services.”
—Michelle Shepherd ([03:10])

On the Weaponization of Starvation

“Withholding food is being used as a weapon... and that’s something my piece is going to focus on... how increasingly we’re seeing that in wars.”
—Michelle Shepherd ([04:41])

On Why the World Isn’t Paying Attention

“If you’re of a certain age, you know about Darfur... But also, as you said, this advocacy... Where’s George Clooney now?... The world seems to only have the capacity to pay attention to one conflict.”
—Michelle Shepherd ([11:01])

On Bearing Witness

“No, I really want to... I want to share this to the world... I can do nothing for the people at Sudan. Nothing I can do for my people.”
—Dr. Jude (Khaltum Adam Mohammad), ([24:02])

On the Inescapable Violence

“There is no way out. These are people flanked by war on all sides. Where is the international urgency to help solve these conflicts, to help create a pathway for these people?”
—Jayme Poisson ([27:41])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:34] – Introduction and overview; warning of graphic content
• [03:10] – Description of camp conditions
• [06:27] – Recap of Sudanese civil war and Darfur genocide
• [09:10] – Discussion on proxy war and regional players
• [10:40] – Lack of modern humanitarian/cultural awareness compared to past crises
• [14:41] – Stories of family flight, mass killing, and survival
• [18:16] – Interviews with survivors of sexual violence
• [22:29] – Introduction of Dr. Jude and her experience
• [24:45] – Dr. Jude’s emotional witness and survivor’s guilt
• [25:41] – Centrality of ethnic targeting in the violence
• [27:41] – The situation for civilians: nowhere safe to flee
• [30:04] – Canada’s position and potential (or lack thereof)
• [31:48] – Reflection on past Canadian-led humanitarian responses

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains a serious, empathetic, and unflinching tone throughout. Both Michelle Shepherd and Jayme Poisson emphasize the gravity of what is being witnessed and conveyed, often pausing to acknowledge the emotional toll and the dreadful reality faced by their interview subjects. The narrators avoid sensationalism, opting instead for direct witness and careful handling of survivor accounts.

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Conclusion

This episode is a sobering, in-depth look at a massive but comparatively invisible crisis. Through Michelle Shepherd’s reporting and interviews with refugees and humanitarian workers, listeners are confronted not only with the urgency and severity of Sudan’s ongoing genocide, but also with the world’s indifference. The episode closes with a call—implicit in the testimonies—to bear witness, respond, and not forget Sudan’s displaced.

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Transcript

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[CBC Announcer]

This is a CBC podcast.

[Jamie Poisson]

Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. And just a note before we get started that this episode will include descriptions of sexual violence. Earlier this month, we brought you an episode on the civil war in Sudan. A years long conflict fought between the leader of the country's military and. And the leader of a notorious paramilitary group. Two men, countless proxies fighting over billions of dollars in natural resources, access to key shipping routes along the Red Sea, and control of one of the oldest countries in the world. The violent fallout from this war was officially designated a genocide by the outgoing Biden administration. The first such determination made in years. Longtime journalist and filmmaker Michelle shepherd has just arrived from a 10 day reporting trip to the Sudanese border for the Walrus magazine. She spoke with victims of one of the worst displacement crises in the world today, and one which much of the world has ignored.

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

I am Khaltum Adam Mohammad. I am Luviji.

[Sudanese Translator]

She's saying that the road was really difficult. They find many people are being beaten in front of their eyes. Some of women are being raped. Violence from different levels. Physically mean, physically. Abuse, harassment. Like everything was really so worse in the world.

[Michelle Shepherd]

You don't have to ask her this, but I'm just asking you.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Is the baby from the sexual assault?

[Jamie Poisson]

Yes.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Okay.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah.

[CBC Announcer]

Okay.

[Jamie Poisson]

Michelle's reporting brings the war into sharper focus. In these camps, she met families who walked for weeks. Girls as young as 13 who survived sexual violence, and doctors who watched their communities hunted. Their testimonies describe a pattern of war crimes that echo almost exactly the genocide which took place in sudan's Darfur region 20 years ago. Michelle, thanks for being here.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Thanks for having me, Jamie.

[Jamie Poisson]

So as I mentioned, you spent 10 days reporting from two refugee camps in Chad, which lines Sudan's western border. These camps are kind of improvised, doing their best to handle the enormous flux of refugees and displaced people coming from the interior of Sudan, often walking for weeks to make it out of the country. And can you tell me about these displaced people's camps and what life is like inside of them?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Sure. You know, I was really shocked by just how primitive they are. So Audrey was the first camp I was at. It's right on the border. It's a temporary camp, it's a transit camp. It wasn't supposed to be one there, but basically when the war started, refugees came over the border and started setting up. And so now the population is somewhere over 200,000 people there, if you can imagine. The camp is. Because it's not an official camp. And I've reported from other refugee camps around the world and Kenya and Pakistan, and they do tend to look kind of the same. You know, they're run by the unhcr. But nothing was as primitive as this. I mean, it's literally sticks put together with cloth or plastic over top. It's quite crowded in certain areas. If it weren't for really doctors without border medicine Sans Frontiere, who helped support my trip to go there as well, they would have very, very few services. I mean, they've put up water towers, they have medical facilities there. I was there after the rainy season. It's upward of 100 degrees in the day. I can't even imagine during the rainy season. There was a cholera epidemic at that time. And apparently it was just really horrific.

[Jamie Poisson]

Wow. I want to get into some specific interviews that you did a little bit later, but just first, broadly, can you tell me about who was in these camps? Where were they coming from? What groups were they part of? What kind of abuses and violence had they been subjected to?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah, they've come from pretty much all over Sudan, but those that I spoke to mainly were from the Darfur region, which is right along the border there. And as you mentioned in the intro, I mean, these people walked for days, many of them. There is a famine in various parts of Sudan right now. So imagining that as well, walking with, like, no food, very little water, they were escaping. Some came right at the beginning of the war, which was April 2023. Some that I met had just arrived a few weeks prior. They're trying to get people out of that camp to more permanent camps inside Chad. So most people are only there. I say only people are there for up to two years and then get to another camp and they're fleeing all sorts of violence. Bombing, drone attacks, shooting. The sexual violence is incredible. I've never covered a conflict where that has been used so widely and so horrifically. Yeah, I met some incredible survivors of that. And then also fleeing a Famine, I mean, just the number of people who have died from starvation and the fact that, that withholding food is being used as a weapon, you know, that's, that's incredible. That's, that's one. Something my piece is going to focus on a little bit, how increasingly we're seeing that in wars. We saw that in Gaza too, but it's definitely being used there as well.

[Jamie Poisson]

The civil war itself, Sudan civil war. We covered it in some detail earlier this month. But just for people listening, here's the short version. Sudan is still reconciling the 2004 Darfur genocide.

[CBC Announcer]

What began as a rebellion by the Sudan Liberation army and the justice and Equality Movement, demanding an end to discrimination and marginalization, was met with a brutal crackdown. Khartoum's forces, aided by local Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, launched a campaign that destroyed entire villages. By 2005, the UN estimated 300,000 killed and millions displaced. One of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

[Jamie Poisson]

The president who oversaw it was overthrown in 2019 by a youth led revolution. Those not already on the streets rushed outside to celebrate. You see Al Bashir stepping down is enough for us, says this woman. Oh, our young people, this is such a joy. His fall left these two men vying for control. A general named Abdelfattah Al Burhan, who leads a Sudanese army, and a general named Hammedi, whose paramilitary carried out much of the violence in Darfur. They ruled together uneasily, and as that relationship broke down, the country slid into civil war. This is a war about billions of dollars of natural resources control over this ancient nation. But in many ways it is also a struggle between these two soldiers vying for control and authority. And can you tell me a little bit about the relationship shared between these two men and whether these leaders figured into the conversations and the camps? What were people saying about them?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good summary. But yeah, 2019 was the important turning point for Sudan. And as you said, there was this popular uprising similar to the Arab Spring uprising that both you and I covered when we were at the Toronto Star. It hadn't happened in Sudan. Government was overthrown and it was overthrown in part because there was a military coup as well. So these two generals that you cited who are now warring were sort of the most two powerful generals in the country at the beginning. They were sharing power and they were ruling. And essentially what happened is they had a falling out and it was a struggle for power and they turned on each other.

[CBC Announcer]

The Militia's powerful leader, known as Himedti, has been an ally of the country's military chief, Abdel Fattah El Burhan, but had a falling out over how his troops would fit into the country's army, sparking this internal war. But it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of it.

[Michelle Shepherd]

It's very much, of course, there are huge players in this, but it has been described as a civil war in the past. And it really, I don't think that's an accurate description in some ways because it is such a proxy war. It is. All the, so many countries around are benefiting from it. The UAE in particular, which is backing the rsf. In terms of those that I interviewed, they were fleeing the violence of the RSF, which is really an offshoot of the Janjaweed from 20 years ago. So in terms of them talking about the two generals, we didn't get into those specifics with those who had fled, but they would say, one mother that I was talking to in a malnutrition center run by msf, you know, I said, why are you here? And she simply answered, the Arabs forced me to. So the Arabs being what they would say about the RSF and the former Janjaweed, because really at the heart of this too, it is, and it means a genocide happening. And it's. And many of the minority ethnic groups are being targeted.

[Jamie Poisson]

During the Darfur genocide 20 years ago, there was this huge celebrity driven social movement around it, right? Like organized and driven by the likes of George Clooney and Bono. We want there to be some humanitarian effort in there to protect the people.

[CBC Announcer]

Who have nothing to do with this political process who are going to die.

[Jamie Poisson]

The Canadian actor Ryan Gosling used to wear T shirts with Darfur scrawled across them to award shows and these red carpet events. And I wonder, why do you think there's not that same attention or awareness today? It really feels like this conflict is being ignored.

[Michelle Shepherd]

I know, I've been thinking about that so much. I mean, if you're, if you're of a certain age, you know about Darfur, like just that, you know, word alone brings up so many images about the horror back then. But also, as you said, this advocacy and, you know, George Clooney flying to Sudan. Where's George Clooney now? I think there's a few reasons. One is simply that, you know, with Gaza and Ukraine going on at the same time, the world seems to only have the capacity to, you know, pay attention to one, one conflict. Partly it's about the lack of coverage, their cell phones and all communication has been cut off in some of these besieged cities. So as I said earlier, if the offenders hadn't been recording the slaughter themselves, we wouldn't have even known about it. Or we have to rely on these satellite images, which is incredible. This kind of reporting is expensive. And also with the decline in media, this backlash against media, declining resources, there's simply not that many people who can go. The only way that I could go as an independent journalist was, you know, writing for this magazine, you know, thankfully being able to do things with cbc. But once I was there, I actually did, you know, for lack of a better word, what you call like an embed with Doctors Without Border because they're so desperate to get news out, they see the suffering. Hannah Berner Are those the cozy Tommy John pajamas you're buying?

[Paige Desorbo]

Paige desorbo they are Tommy John and yes, I'm stocking up because they make the best holiday gifts.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So generous.

[Paige Desorbo]

Well, I'm a generous girly, especially when it comes to me. So I'm grabbing the softest sleepwear, comfiest underwear and best fitting loungewear.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So nothing for your bestie?

[Paige Desorbo]

Of course I'm getting my dad Tommy John.

[Jamie Poisson]

Oh, and you of course it's giving holiday gifting made.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Easy.

[Paige Desorbo]

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[Jamie Poisson]

Comfort aaj podcast sponsor hai Wise or use Karna me help Kartha Hai Wise Fast, safe, transparent or affordable Hai Bina Hidden charges Ya Achanak badi Hui prices AAP Indian bank account or Pesa Kahimi Bhait Sakteh Smart Bani 1.5 crore customers Aaj hi wise app download Kara yahweis.com Visit Kara terms and conditions apply okay, let's talk about some of the people you met. The innocent civilians, the victims of this fight for money and power. This is brutal stuff. I'll just say that we're about to get into. I guess one of the first interviews we should go through is a 20 year old girl named Israel Aldean. And I just want to be clear in saying that the voices that listeners that the people are going to be listening to here are the Sudanese translators that were with you that were working with Doctors Without Borders. Uh, they're kind of, they're translating this in real time in the camps. So ISRA was in one of the camps with her mother, sister and two younger brothers. They told you that they saw women being raped and beaten on the long journey into Chad. And. And just. Can you tell me about what led this family out of Sudan?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah, I. Her interview was so stunning. I'd. I'd already spoken to a bunch of families, and Jamie was awful. You hear one story and you think, oh, that's the worst thing I've heard. And then the next family would come, like, that's the worst thing I heard. And then ISRA started telling her story. They fled. They lived in Al Fashr, and they.

[Sudanese Translator]

Got many years there in El Fashir. And then when the war started in El F, they left Fasr, going to.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Zamzam, and they went to an internally displaced person's, an IDP camp in Zamzam. And that camp had at one point up to 700,000. I mean, it was just enormous. And these are people fleeing from various parts of Sudan where the fighting's breaking out. Zam Zam. Food was scarce, was terrible there. So the war broke out in April. They fled there and lived there for a year until April of this year when the RSF slaughtered those in Zamzam. And it wasn't an attack that made the international headlines, as Al Fasher just did, but from my understanding, was, you know, equally brutal. They. There was only one organization, international organization left there. MSF actually had had to pull out earlier. They went in and killed the doctors there. So they fled that as they were fleeing, they. They went to another camp that's known as Tawele, and then eventually to. Made their way to Chad by foot. When they were fleeing to Tooelehe father was shot dead, which is very much what happens to many families when they're fleeing. I mean, these refugee camps are predominantly actually women and children because most of the men have been killed.

[Sudanese Translator]

They suspect their father as one of the military. So because of that, they become shoot it. And he'd been killed.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Was it in their home or in the streets?

[Sudanese Translator]

It was in the road. When they were coming from Zamzam to.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Toila, I asked, you know, what could you do?

[Sudanese Translator]

She said, well, when he been killed, they just left him like this. They didn't bear him. So because the time was so hard and even you can't have minutes to. To be there and have that process. So they just left him like this.

[Michelle Shepherd]

My understanding from what she said is then they took those who were around, the women and children, sort of interrogated them. I believe some of the women were sexually assaulted, and then they told them to turn around and run, and they got on Top of those, you know those vehicles with the mounted weapons and they just shot.

[Sudanese Translator]

It is a gun that way they put in the car. The car? Yeah. In the back of the car? Yes, yes, yes.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Like on the top of a 4x4? Yeah.

[Sudanese Translator]

Yeah.

[CBC Announcer]

Wow.

[VRBO Advertiser]

Wow.

[Michelle Shepherd]

I'm so sorry. And whoever made it, made it Evil.

[Jamie Poisson]

Evil. Next, you spoke to two survivors of sexual violence were going to withhold their names due to very obvious concerns over their safety. These conversations were particularly heartbreaking. One of the people you're speaking to, you realize is 13 years old and she is carrying a five month old baby. A newborn.

[Michelle Shepherd]

How old is your baby?

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah, five months.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Five months. So cute. Now you get me crying too. No, it's good to cry. We should cry about this. It's horrible. Yeah, sorry.

[Jamie Poisson]

And you come to realize that this little girl was a victim of rape and the baby that she is carrying was a product of that assault.

[Michelle Shepherd]

You don't have to ask her this, but I'm just asking you.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Is the baby from the sexual assault?

[Jamie Poisson]

Yes.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Okay.

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Okay.

[Jamie Poisson]

And tell me what you heard from her.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So it's this center within the camp that is. It's actually a Sudanese run center for survivors that MSF supports as well. And I walked in and actually I didn't have my recorder going yet because I didn't want to walk in with my mic out. But when I walked in, it was actually kind of a joyous scene. Like all these women, the music was blaring and they're making crafts and that they're going to later sell. And everybody in that room was a survivor of violence. So I spoke to one woman first who helped run the center and she was a survivor. And then as you say, this little girl. Little girl came up and oh man, the trauma on her face was so clear. And she was like pulling out a thread on her dress the whole time and made very clear, like she didn't have to talk. I didn't want to re traumatize her, you know, but she really wanted to. And then I realized, oh, she's 13, she's a minor and ethically I don't feel great about this, like, so I asked the other woman who I just spoken to, like would you know if her mom is here or you know, a guardian. And that woman said, oh no, she's my daughter.

[Jamie Poisson]

She's mother. Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

This is your daughter?

[Jamie Poisson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So here I am looking at two generations of women who have survived this. Her mother had actually fled to the camp earlier after surviving, thought her daughter would be Safer back with relatives. And one day she was in the market. RSF soldier pulled her into a shop.

[Jamie Poisson]

RSF rape her. @ that time, she said, one of the. From him, half knife and also half gun. And after that, he said, if you talk about anything about this doll to your mom or something, I can kill you.

[Michelle Shepherd]

So she didn't. And then she became pregnant, and eventually, you know, told her mom and they got her to the camp, but. And this little baby girl, her daughter was just the cutest little thing. She was so sweet. And all the women clearly were helping her and loving her. And that baby shown a lot of love.

[Jamie Poisson]

When we were going through all of your interviews, and our producer Matt was kind of collating all of your interviews, he was noticing that you spoke to a lot of women located at the bottom end of the country's social hierarchy. They're not members of, like, the aristocratic class, Right. They're not women from the capital city of Khartoum. They were mates, domestic workers, women working odd jobs, women that were already kind of on the periphery of society in some ways. And that is except Dr. Jude, who's a doctor you spoke to in the camps. And can you tell me a little bit about her?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people who had money and influence are not in the camps. You know, they could get out in other. And are living elsewhere. But Dr. Jude works actually with MSF. She fled and then sort of made her way to one of these clinics and said, you know, I'm a doctor. Can my services be used? And so she started at the beginning as a health practitioner, and then just recently, you know, started working as a doctor, which is so wonderful because, you know, of the different dialects there. And she really is connecting with her patients. And actually, to that end, the translator that you heard earlier, too, he also is a survivor. Right. He came as a refugee as well, and then started working with msf. She was incredibly strong and articulate and very much wanted to speak. And it was, you know, just within minutes, really, of our interview that she broke down when I mentioned Al Fasher, the latest assault. Because clearly everybody is impacted by this. Everybody has been impacted personally or knows somebody who has. You've been seeing what's happened in the last.

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

Yes, it's so hard, by the way. So hard.

[Michelle Shepherd]

I'm sorry. And she was one of the few in interviews I was able to do in English. And she, you know, I can't remember the exact quote, but she was so articulate, saying, what else can I do?

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

No, I. I really want to Yes. I want to share this, share this to the world.

[VRBO Advertiser]

Okay.

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

Because it's. It's the simple thing that I can do it. I can do nothing for the people at Sudan. Nothing I can do for my people. You're doing a lot just to hear.

[VRBO Advertiser]

Anyway.

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

For people in Sudan, we cannot do anything. We can do anything just for the people here. We can support them. But for the people of Sudan and for our country, nothing we can do. Nothing we can do, unfortunately. Allah may help us support this.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Yeah, we were. Myself and the MSF communication specialist I was with, we were all sort of crying by the end. Yeah, she was really amazing.

[Jamie Poisson]

One thing that struck me about Dr. Jude was how she talked about ethnicity and the way that it underpins the war. Sudan has a long history of ethnic hierarchy, political power concentrated among lighter skinned Arab communities in the north, while many in the south and in the interior, including groups like the masalit, which is Dr. Jude's community, are non Arab and darker skinned. And she told you about how she was hiding her identity, about mercenaries asking her what tribe she belonged to. And from what you saw and heard in Chad, how central does race and ethnicity feel to this conflict? Especially given that both the Darfur genocide and this new campaign have largely targeted non Arab groups in and around Darfur.

[Michelle Shepherd]

It's central. I mean, it was central 20 years ago. It's central today. It's very much a genocide in that sense. And that has been a lot of the struggle. In her case, she told this harrowing story of having to lie, to lie about who she was to get out.

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

He said, you, the army will kill you and will kill my kids. If someone asks you in the road, do not say you are Masalid anything. I said, no, you are your kids. You can say whatever you say. But me, I'm a salad. And I keep saying this. At that time, again, I collapse because I know the road. We will face a lot of things.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Okay?

[Khaltum Adam Mohammad]

I said, okay, no way. We have to leave at 4.

[Michelle Shepherd]

And she was, again, lucky. I think she has, you know, a little bit of survivor's guilt, which she should not have. But so many people, you know, pooled together their resources to get her family out and she is now, you know, safe. But it was touch and go on the route. And had she been discovered of her true ethnicity, no doubt she would have been killed.

[Jamie Poisson]

Virtually everyone that you spoke to in the camp is citing some kind of prior episode or incident of violence. Right. They're running from that. And in a lot of ways, these accounts are part of a broader trend in the region of civilians fleeing westward away from violence. So civilians in Ethiopia's Tigray region are fleeing west into Sudan from one historic campaign of violence into an entirely other one. Right. Civilians from Sudan are fleeing west from Sudan into Chad.

[CBC Announcer]

Sameera Umar is building a perimeter wall around her new home. She's one of 300,000 Sudanese in the Yoriba area who have taken refuge in Chad because of the fighting in their country.

[Jamie Poisson]

She says she's if they continue west, they end up in Africa's Sahel region, which has been the home of at least six successful coups between 2020 and 2024. And if they go south, they end up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the DRC and Rwandan paramilitaries have been in a violent standoff over the country's mineral wealth. And in some ways, there is no way out. These are people flanked by war on all sides. Where is the international urgency to help solve these conflicts, to help create a pathway for these people?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Well, I don't think it's not there. I mean, years ago when I was still at the Star, I covered the Central African Republic, which is in the region, too. It is a really troubled region. And I guess the simple answer is a lot of people don't want these wars to end. That's certainly one of the problems with Sudan, that all the parties that are involved are vying for power and getting rich, and it's the Sudanese civilians and population that suffer. But a very cynical sense is those lives just don't matter on the larger scale. There's not the kind of diplomacy that there should be. There's not the kind of resources that there should be. And Africa, as the whole continent has become really, especially in the last five, six years, really important to a lot of different regions. I remember covering Somalia for years, and you saw a huge Turkish influence, and then you saw a Chinese influence. And now my understanding is so many countries in these troubled regions have all these players trying to, as I said earlier, pick a winner or to benefit.

[Jamie Poisson]

I mentioned we've talked about how the outgoing Biden administration labeled this a genocide. But I want to end today by talking about Canada specifically, because we have not done that. We have recognized atrocities as genocides before. The Yazidis in the Middle East, Myanmar's genocide of the Rohingya Parliament recognized, recognized China's alleged genocide of the Uyghurs, though the prime minister and Cabinet did abstain from an official vote. But in Sudan, why do you think Canada hasn't done Anything similar here?

[Michelle Shepherd]

Well, you know, as you know, declaring a genocide is. Even though there's very strict legal definitions and it's clear it always becomes very political. I haven't actually done the reporting in Ottawa to know exactly why that is, so it would just be me surmising. But if I, you know, if I had to do that, it's, you know, diplomatically not worth it. It hasn't. It hasn't hit the agenda. The UAE is important to Canada. Perhaps, you know, the UAE does not consider this a genocide. So that certainly has to play in to some degree. But, you know, it's interesting because in a way too, Canada, I feel, you know, does have the power as a middle power to take a stance on some of these, to lead the field. You know, in times, if not diplomatically, then at least with humanitarian aid, with the loss of usaid, I mean, Canada could fill that role. And I don't know if you had him on the show, but a CBC reporter, Brian Stewart, just wrote a memoir about the famine partly. One of the stories he covered so well was about the famine in Ethiopia many years ago. And it was CBC's coverage that put that CBC and BBC that put that story on the agenda.

[CBC Announcer]

All across northern Ethiopia, famine is along each road and at the gates of every town by the hundreds of thousands, peasants are fleeing the worst drought in memory. Unknown thousands are dying alone. The way it's feared, close to a million could die within months unless the world responds with a massive relief effort.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Apparently, you know, Prime Minister Mulroney was crying when he looked at the footage. That footage from CBC later was a part of Live Aid, where billions were spent. Again, you just don't see that. I haven't seen that from Canada in a long time. And we could be a leader on this, this, and we're just not.

[Jamie Poisson]

Okay, Michelle, thank you.

[Michelle Shepherd]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

[CBC Announcer]

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