Escaping Artillery Fire: A Family's Harrowing Experience Trapped in Sudan

Cropped CH11013477 for SCI web, visit CH11013477 for original. More than 600,000 people – both refugees and returnees – have crossed the border into South Sudan since violence escalated in Sudan last April. Every day about 1,000 people are arriving in a region already facing a severe hunger crisis, and the numbers continue to rise as the hostilities in Sudan show no sign of abating. Most people arrive with nothing, having lost their homes and livelihoods. Some children have reported seeing loved ones, including their parents, killed on route. The majority have arrived at the border crossing of Joda in Upper Nile State by foot or on donkey carts, from where up to 200 people at a time are crammed into trucks with standing room only. They are taken to two overcrowded transit centres in nearby Renk, a two-hour journey on dirt tracks in temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) as South Sudan battles its worst heatwave in four years. They usually spend about two weeks in the centres, where food and water are scarce, healthcare is limited, and many sleep outside in makeshift shelters. From there 500 people at a time are packed onto barges for a two-day journey along the Nile to head to other destinations in South Sudan or packed into trucks headed for a refugee camp in Maban. Most of these families have been displaced before. Many fled to Sudan from South Sudan in 2013 when widespread intercommunal violence erupted just two years after the country celebrated its independence as the world’s newest nation. Despite a peace deal in South Sudan in 2018, the country is still facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, plagued by continuing violence, repeated climate disasters, widespread hunger, mass displacement and now soaring prices. Even before the Sudan war, about 9 million people – about 75% of the population ¬– including nearly 5 million children were in need of humanitarian assistance. Since the escalation of violence in Sudan, Save the Children has expanded its operations in Renk to assist families. Staff members are on location from the border to the boats to keep children and families safe, help them on and off the trucks, see to their immediate needs and emotional welfare, as well as reunite unaccompanied children with their families. Save the Children has worked in South Sudan since 1991. The child rights organisation provides children with access to education, healthcare and nutritional support, and families with food security and livelihoods assistance. In 2023, the organisation’s programmes reached over XX million children and this year Save the Children hopes to reach XX million people in South Sudan.

Hurricane Otis has made landfall on the Pacific coast on 25 October, with winds reaching 165mph (266 km/h). It had intensified from a tropical storm into a category five hurricane - the most severe category - in just 12 hours - and became the strongest storm ever to hit Mexico’s Pacific coast damaging more than 200,000 homes. Acapulco was among the areas worst hit in Mexico, with 80% of the resort's hotels damaged and streets flooded. Families have lost their entire homes, schools are damaged, and hundreds of thousands of people were without power and water. 11-year-old Diego* speaks of his experience: “I had a bad time, a tree fell when we were inside the house, we went into a room to protect ourselves, but the rain and the wind were pushing the door, we had to put a bed and a sofa against the door to keep the water out, it was the only way to survive. I was left without clothes and I would like to go back to school, but for now we can't". While seven-year-old twin sisters Nayeli* and Ana* say: “we need food, water, shades because it’s very hot here,” Save the Children delivered a Humanitarian Response in the Guerrero region on November 3 supplying food, water, hygiene and wellbeing kits. In one shelter, Save the Children created a child-friendly space where HEAR activities are carried out to help children process traumatic experiences following the Category five Hurricane. Miguel Vera/ Save the Children

Anderson, a staff member from Haiti looks over Port au Prince.