March 23, 2020 (Eastern Chad) Mrs. F was not an exemption from rape, when the sound of rifles echoed the war in the Darfur region in 2004, as many women were raped during the war in the region that has been in crisis for more than 16 years.
However, Mrs. F was driven by the first wave of asylum from Darfur to eastern Chad in search of safety there, and she was one of the 150,000 refugees that scattered in 13 dispersed camps along the eastern strip of the semi-desert country of Chad.
After years spent in Milli refugee camp , she was able to forget what had happened to her , but the shadows of the war she lived with others in the camp insisted on repeated bitterness.
16 years later , her 17-year-old daughter was exposed to the same incident, but a different country.
The little girl, “N”, could hardly tell what had happened to her on that day when she and other women were coming from firewood collection trip, that some young men chased them, but the slim and skinny “N” could not escape her perpetrators and fell prey to rapists.
During firewood collection, Sudanese girls and women, in refugee camps in eastern Chad, have been subjected to rape incidents for more than 10 months, after the humanitarian organizations stopped providing them relief aid.
However, this phenomenon of sexual assualt is the most worrying issue for the camp women ,who had fled their country to escape rape, but unfortuanetly rapist are chasing them even in a place they considered safe .
Women in the refugee camps , in eastern Chad have resorted to firewood collection , as a source of income and low-profit businesses for camp women, since humanitarian agencies stopped giving them food ration.
Faiza, who is women activist, says that rape during firewood collection has become a daily occurrence and she calls on everyone to pay attention to women and girls. Over the years of the war in Darfur, women have attained the greatest share of violations and war crimes, and rape has been used as a weapon against women in the region.
Residents of refugee camps in eastern Chad are closely and carefully monitoring the ongoing peace negotiations in the capital of South Sudan, Juba after the fall of former President Omar al-Bashir’s regime.
In 2009 the International Criminal Court ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir, on charges relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur.