Dear John,
Enass Muzamel wasn’t planning to leave Khartoum, the city in Sudan where fighting between the army and a paramilitary group have caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee in recent weeks. But as she told us recently, she didn’t have a choice.
“One of the reasons we left our house in the beginning was because our neighbor—who lives just four or five houses down the street—was just cooking in her home, and she was killed,” she said. “We saw that.”
Enass and her two sisters moved from one city to another almost every day. They rented flats that would normally cost $10-$15 USD a day, but because of the war and people taking advantage of the situation, were now $100-$150 USD a day. Conditions in some were horrible. The same thing happened with prices for food and transport.
The people of Sudan are facing a humanitarian disaster. Many people don’t have enough water, food, and electricity. They risk getting shot if they leave their homes to seek food and other aid. And it also has become nearly impossible to get emergency medical care, since most hospitals have been bombed.
Thanks to donations from supporters like you, AFSC was able to arrange a private driver to evacuate Enass and her sisters as part of a caravan to Ethiopia. It took them nine days to reach Addis Ababa. Upon arrival, the cost of a visa had risen from $50 a few months ago to $80. It will soon expire and needs to be renewed.
Costs like these are yet another challenge for refugees who have fled their homes with very little. Many can’t access bank accounts because banks in Sudan have been destroyed. And the value of the Sudanese dollar has plummeted.
The AFSC community is part of a network helping Sudanese people meet urgent needs. So is Enass, herself. She is a human rights defender and co-founder of the Sudanese nonprofit organization Madaniya, which supports women and youth in actively participating in their communities and in policymaking. She is involved in the Salama Hub, too – an AFSC-supported coalition working for peace in the Horn of Africa. Even as a refugee, Enass remains very involved in her community in Khartoum, working day and night to reach out to pharmacies, line up resources for food and water, and assist people with temporary relocation.
“When you help human rights defenders, you are helping tens of thousands more people because they do so much work for many others,” she says.
Thank you once again for all the ways you support our efforts.
