As the brutal war in Sudan nears the the two-year mark, thousands of people continue to flee into neighbouring countries, including Chad, UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday.
Chad hosts 1.3 million forcibly displaced people, according to the UN agency, UNHCR despite it being one of the world's poorest countries. More than half of these vulnerable individuals are Sudanese who've fled the fighting between rival militaries which erupted in April 2023.
Speaking from the Chadian border with Sudan, Mr. Grandi described the continued fighting as "absurd".
He also condemned the ongoing "vicious human rights abuses" against civilians before calling for far greater international support for Sudanese refugees and their Chadian hosts.
The arrivals are mostly women and children - some of whom have been crawling exhausted across the border with barely any possessions, according to aid teams on the ground.
Funding crisis
The UN agency stressed once again that the crisis rocking humanitarian funding globally has only made matters worse.
Large cuts to overseas aid provision in the United States and elsewhere have made it impossible to pay teachers, the UN agency said.
Clinics and schools that protect women and children from violence and exploitation have been forced to shut down.
Some 8,500 displaced children in Chad are at risk of losing access to secondary education this year. If the cuts carry on into next year, more than 155,000 could be impacted.
Lost futures
"Children have dropped out of school," said Abdelrahim Abdelkarim, headteacher of a secondary school in Farchana refugee settlement in eastern Chad.
"Many students will take dangerous and illegal migration routes, attempting to cross the sea. Some may drown while others end up working in gold mines," he warned.
High Commissioner for Refugees Grandi has previously described the funding shortfall as "a crisis of responsibility" in which "the cost of inaction will be measured in suffering, instability and lost futures".
