Refugee invisibility in Chad hosting Sudanese war refugees

Eastern Chad doesn’t look like the centre of a global emergency. There are no constant press briefings or rolling headlines. Just dusty border towns trying to absorb a shock that never really stops.

Since April 2023, more than 880,000 Sudanese refugees and nearly 330,000 Chadian returnees have crossed the border, most settling in Ouaddaï, Sila, Wadi Fira, and Ennedi-Est. In several departments, refugees now make up 32 to 50% of the population. Towns built for thousands are absorbing tens of thousands more, often overnight.

What that looks like in practice is not chaos, but pressure. Rents double. Food prices creep upward. Fields are repurposed for camps before harvests are finished. According to Dr Yamingué Betinbaye, a Doctor of Political Geography and Senior Researcher at the Centre d'Etudes des Dynamiques Sociales, farmland has sometimes been requisitioned without compensation, pushing already-poor farmers deeper into insecurity. Losing a field here doesn’t mean losing income. It means losing survival.

Food insecurity is tightening its grip. From October 2025 through May 2026, Crisis-level hunger (IPC Phase 3) is expected across the main refugee-hosting provinces. By early 2026, the food stocks of poor households will be exhausted. Nationally, 1.5 to nearly 2 million people are expected to need food assistance, with the worst period falling between April and May 2026. These are not abstract projections. They translate into skipped meals, rising debt, and families selling off livestock just to get through the week.

The health system is bending under similar strain. In July 2025, cholera was first detected in the Dougui refugee camp. It spread fast, into camps, then host communities, then across provinces. By late October, over 2,800 cases had been recorded in Ouaddaï, Sila, Guéra, and Hadjer Lamis. Cholera thrives where water is scarce, sanitation is weak, and malnutrition is already present. Eastern Chad meets all three conditions.

Among newly arrived refugees, especially children, the situation is alarming. In parts of Wadi Fira and Ennedi-Est, global acute malnutrition rates among under-fives have reached 18%, a critical level. Humanitarian feeding programs help, but they are reactive by design. They treat the damage after it’s done.

The boundaries between refugee, returnee, and host community are increasingly blurred. Families cross the border and choose different paths depending on what they need, registration in camps for aid, or informal settlement with relatives to preserve dignity and autonomy. As Dr Betinbaye explains, ethnic and social ties run seamlessly across the Chad–Sudan border, making rigid categories feel artificial on the ground. This fluidity helps people survive, but it also fuels resentment when assistance appears uneven or unfair.

Host communities are paying a quiet price. Refugees increase the labour supply overnight, driving down wages for farm and casual work. Water points, firewood, and grazing land are stretched beyond capacity. In areas where natural resources were already scarce, competition is sharpening into tension. Refugees are often perceived as protected, while locals feel left behind, even when they are facing the same hunger.

Elsewhere in the country, crisis wears a different face. In Lac Province, attacks linked to armed groups and repeated flooding have displaced more than 225,000 people. Fishing has declined. Fields have been abandoned. Markets are disrupted. Households there are also facing Crisis-level hunger, not because of refugees, but because insecurity has become a permanent feature of life.

Agriculture, the backbone of survival for most Chadians, offers little certainty. Floods in 2024 destroyed over 418,000 hectares of cropland. In 2025, rains came late and unevenly, forcing replanting and crop abandonment in several regions. National production may average out, but local failures are devastating. When harvests fail, people borrow. When debt piles up, assets disappear. Recovery becomes harder each season.

Aid remains a lifeline, but it is stretched thin. Refugees receive monthly food or cash assistance, while returnees often receive only short-term support. Cash transfers currently cover about 60% of a basic food basket, leaving households to fill the gap themselves. Funding shortages and the cholera response have further limited what humanitarian actors can provide. Assistance is keeping people alive, but it is not stabilising their futures.

What makes this crisis so dangerous is its invisibility. There are no dramatic tipping points, only accumulation. According to Dr Betinbaye, Chad is responding to this influx using the same humanitarian templates as past crises, despite the scale, speed, and regional risks being entirely different.

Eastern Chad is not collapsing. It is absorbing shock after shock, quietly and unevenly. But resilience has limits. Without sustained attention to food security, health, and the needs of host communities alongside refugees, this slow-burning emergency will harden into something far more difficult to reverse. For the millions living it, the crisis is not coming. It is already here.

Further information and opportunities to engage with organisations working in this area are listed below:
https://ongnirvana.org/a-propos/
https://new.ajala.app/fiche?id=93
https://alima.ngo/en/country/chad/

Share This Article

What's Your Opinion?

Share your thoughts on this article