Enveloped in a blue-and-capous scarf and a matching dress, Fordos, 50, wait patiently while workers collect bowls of rice and yellow division peas in large, faded plastic bags, before collecting large cans of fortified vegetable oil. The rations of the World Food Program (WFP), have distributed a recent morning in the Central African city of Birao, amount to a month of food for his family of five.
WFP assistance is the first they have received since crossing the border in this distant slice from the northeast of the Central Republic of Africa or the car. It is also the only food on which they can count, in the future.
“I need this food for my grandchildren,” explains Fordos, whose family fled her village torn apart by war in the Darfur region in the south of Sudan earlier this year with only a few covers and clothes. “And to help me settle here.”
Fordos – whose surname is retained for its protection – is among tens of thousands of people pouring into the neighboring Sudan car in the past year. Of the more than 43,000 Sudanese refugees and repatriated central Africa in search of a shelter here, 90% have crossed the border since 2024. Many have settled in Birao.
They arrive in a country struggling with its own inheritance of hunger, violence and travel. Decades of armed conflicts and other car disorders have uprooted millions. One in three Central African are acute hungry. Four in 10 children are slowed down by malnutrition.
“The Central African Republic has opened its doors to Sudanese refugees,” said the director of the country of WFP Cater, Rasmus Egendal. “PAM is struggling to support their support for life and vulnerable residents. We need the donors urgently to associate the generosity of the car.”
Many newcomers say they were welcomed by Birao residents. Sudanese children are registered in local schools and some learn French, one of the country’s official languages.
“We are talking about the same language as the host community and have the same traditions,” explains Tarik Sudanese entrepreneur, who heads the local association of Sudanese merchants in Birao. The Central African and Sudanese communities have solid bonds and cross-border traditions, he says, adding: “It is a coexistence that works well.”
A new house
On the outskirts of Birao, a sprawling district of Sudanese exiles appeared called Korsi. The dirt roads weave in a maze of white tents and stimpening bamboo stands selling food and other products. Towers and colorful dresses drag to dry. The vast majority of newcomers are women and children.
“I no longer hear the shooting,” explains Kadija, who arrived in Birao in the Sudanese city of Nyala two years ago, shortly after the breakup of the Sudan war. “For us, it’s tranquility.”
Like many refugees here, Kadija aspires to finally go home. For the moment, she has launched a small business, selling the crafts that she has learned to do with WFP support. As children crowd around her in their small house, she shows a visitor how she weaves colored baskets with recycled equipment.
“My job helps me to survive,” explains Kadija, who has nine children and grandchildren with her in Birao. “WFP assistance completes my income and allows me to feed my children.”
PAM also supports refugees like Kadija and the return of Africes with specialized nutritional supplements for women and small children in malnutrition, and school meals in local schools, who have welcomed in Sudanese children.
“WFP’s assistance not only gives people the food they need to survive today, but also the hope of getting back on the long term,” said Egendal de WFP.
The African central authorities also give refugees of small plots of land to cultivate, with PAM and our United Nations partner, the food and agricultural organization, providing seeds and agricultural tools.
“I cleared the earth and cut trees with machetes,” explains Halima, 48, who wants to grow tomatoes, a tombo, a lettuce and onions on her package. Like Kadija, she is from Nyala, the capital of the state of southern Darfur of Sudan. She fled with nine children and grandchildren last year, while bombs and missile attacks were raining the city. Her husband died shortly after the family arrived in Birao.
“Without the earth, I would stay here, the weapons crossed, not knowing what to do,” explains Halima, who is responsible for feeding his large family. Several of his nine children have left Birao in search of work. The others depend entirely on the help of the WFP to get out of it.
“There are a lot of difficulties,” said Halima.
Grandmother Fordos also hopes for land. She cultivated the peanuts and millet in her Sudanese abori village once, until war came to it, killing her husband and daughter. She and several grandchildren hiked two days by car and car.
Now they have to start again.
“I would like to resume agriculture,” says Fordos, “and I hope that my grandchildren can go to school in town.”
The response of Sudanese PAM refugees in the car is made possible thanks to the generous support of the United States of America.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of the World Food Program (WFP).
