72 Hours Covering the Sudan War (I have no words)

Right now, there are many wars taking place in the world, as I'm sure you're aware of. But one war that doesn't get much news coverage is the war in Sudan, which is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. By numbers, this war has affected significantly more than any other current war right now. Over 12 million people have been displaced, and around 20 million are facing acute hunger and starvation. And well over 1 million people have fled across the border into South Sudan alone. This conflict has brought devastating violence to the population. Entire villages have been destroyed and families torn apart, forcing millions to flee their ancestral lands. It isn't just a war between two armies. It is targeted violence against specific communities, causing a devastating cost to human life and driving hundreds of thousands across the border into South Sudan just to survive. Today, we'll be flying into Juba, the capital city of South Sudan, the world's newest country, only gaining independence in 2011 and since then has had a civil war and continued conflict of its own. From Juba, we'll fly over these conflict zones and up to the border of Sudan. Navigating South Sudan by land is practically impossible. The entire country is roughly the size of France, yet it only has about 200-300 km of paved roads in total. The rest are treacherous dirt tracks that dissolve into impassable mud. You are exposed to ambushes, heavy military checkpoints and armed attacks. That makes flying the only real option to move across the country and take aid to those who need it. But taking to the skies is far from safe. Aviation infrastructure is so underdeveloped that accidents are tragically frequent, leaving remote rural runways littered with the destroyed rusted carcasses of crashed planes. Just to remind you where you are in the world. Once arriving at the Sudan border, we'll be staying in a heavily guarded compound with a bomb shelter, and we will meet the huge influx of Sudanese refugees arriving from the horrors taking place in Sudan. If South Sudan is their refuge, can you imagine just how bad where they came from is? So let's go and meet them, hear their harrowing stories, and learn more about this horrific war that's going on in Sudan right now. This one's going to be heavy. We cannot hear the screams, but as we sit here today, the horror is continuing. Welcome to Juba, capital city of South Sudan, the world's newest country. Only gaining independence in 2011, and then plunged instantly into a full-blown civil war. Still lots of tribal warfare exists in this country, but today the focus is on the Sudanese people fleeing to South Sudan from the north South Sudan has a humanitarian crisis of its own but Sudan has the world's biggest humanitarian crisis here in South Sudan malnutrition and conflict are rife throughout the country and the infrastructure is almost non-existent so today we'll be getting on a plane and flying up to the northern regions of South Sudan to near the border of Sudan even if you could drive up to the places we're going today it wouldn't be a wise idea conflict and bandits all throughout the country. It's very unpredictable. So we'll be jumping on a plane that is used to take aid to the most desperate and remote areas of this planet. So let's leave the relative safety of Juba, jump on a plane and head out into some of the most hard-hitting places on this planet so we've just touched down in Malakal which is basically the second biggest hub of South Sudan this place has a very dark past the buildings around here are sprayed with bullet holes from the civil war this is the air traffic control tower and this is the second main airport of the country so just to give you an understanding of where we are and the conditions that people face and you imagine we flew over conflict zones there were markers on the plane showing where conflict has recently occurred armed conflict and remember we're not even up to the parts where the Sudanese people are fleeing to so you imagine how bad it is up in Sudan if people are fleeing to another active war zone essentially this was damaged from bullet holes yeah yeah you can hardly even really see through these windows look they haven't been replaced it's all falling apart boarded up windows from old crates right i'll keep practicing yeah you're our pilot today right that's true and you're taking us from Juba Malakal and then we're off to another location after this yeah and so how long have you been flying here in South Sudan for already two and a half years can you just tell me a bit about what you were telling me before about how flying here is a whole different beast because of the air traffic control and you have to look out right because you have to monitor all surroundings because plane collisions are actually not all that rare here right like they actually happen somewhat frequently in comparison to the rest of the world so that's true could you touch that on that a little bit yeah yeah yeah South Sudan is quite a quite a scary place to fly in and that's because of the lack of a lot of infrastructure in the west an air traffic controller has a big screen with a radar connected and he can see just flying dots and he can separate them quite well and over here even in Juba our our capital the main airport they don't have a functioning radar so the air traffic controllers are trying to do their best but they build a 3d picture just only on radio calls that's really really challenging especially when aircraft are deviating from their routes due to weather for instance which is quite common in this area of the world we have massive storms coming over the country and then you you need to find a safe place to go to but once all those aircraft are off their normal tracks it is it is dangerous and yeah collisions are a real risk so you need to as a pilot you need to stay ahead of your own aircraft you need to be well prepared for the next 20 30 minutes of your flight having a good situational awareness where am i where are others listening to the radio and also building that 3d picture to stay out of the risky zone just so i get my head around this the capital city of the sub-saharan oil state doesn't have a radar like a city anywhere else in the world does so they kind of fill in blanks leaning extra hard on the radio but they don't actually have a radar in the air traffic control tower that's correct wow that's correct yeah it's quite hard to believe isn't it it is and the the thing is like over here there is a radio navigation instrument on the ground which is not working here but it's a very useful tool for pilots to navigate on in Juba we have the same situation the equipment is sitting there but not functioning and we are only relying on gps but as you know we are also more or less in a war zone and a common thing in war zones is spoofing and jamming of your gps i had it several times even even flying up here north in country you're coming close to the border of sudan i still remember a flight into yida yida is very close to the to the sudanese border i think it's only six or seven k from the border and all of a sudden all my screens were taking over and they projected me somewhere in sudan so you don't have a clue anymore or your system doesn't have a clue i had happily because you need to be ahead of your aircraft right so i was doing the math just very basic i need to fly this amount of minutes in this direction then i can start to descend and then i will see yida in the next 20 minutes and i was able to navigate to that place like that without any proper systems working anymore but during that very same time another airplane was trying to find Yida and he was more or less lost and I had him still on my screen he was also spoofed into Sudan so we were both flying in Sudan we weren't so I knew his relative position to my aircraft so I chatted with the pilot like if you fly this amount of minutes in this direction you will cross the Yida track and then you will find it. But that's actually just day-to-day life in South Sudan, flying around. Being a pilot here requires so much more awareness, a lot of spontaneity and have to be really in touch with the unpredictable. Behind us we've got the runway that we just landed on and we're going to be taking off from momentarily. There's been quite a lot of incidents here recently where people are losing their landing gear by coming up short and things and collisions with each other. It's sad but it's a common thing to be exposed to air crashes in South Sudan so you can you can still see the engines in the grass over there because engines are quite expensive so often they keep them at the place where plane crashes then they have some spare parts and stuff but over here in this grass there were several big aircraft just collided in each other and i think in the end in less than a year time four aircraft crash landed over here so it's not getting safer is it not at all no not at all it's so sad to hear those stories because it is often people seeking for a safe way to travel in this country because traveling via air is quite dangerous but joining the roads is even more dangerous many people don't have a real choice it's almost a choice between drive you know for days and days to get across a very small amount of land because the road infrastructure is so limited and come across bandits and robberies and things like this and potentially active conflict because we flew over an active war zone yeah i showed you on the chart yeah and that's quite a long stretch if you need to cover that area with a car it will take you at least two days oh two days being in the danger right and we saw the many armed conflicts and it was only recent conflict so only in the last few weeks and even outside of that it's unpredictable right sure Yeah, yeah. And so the choice is between that or getting airborne and risking your life in a different kind of way, right? But that's the more preferable option is to go by air, obviously. Yeah, but there are not many people who can afford it. Behind these hedges is a huge, bombed, absolutely riddled with bullet holes building. This whole city used to have hundreds of thousands of people. Now it's just basically just absolutely destroyed and there's not really that many people left in comparison to what it was. five hours of one question system test okay so here we are in Maban which is quite a remote airstrip you can see it's dirt runway luckily it's dry because when it gets wet you can actually sink into the mud i was in south sudan in 2022 and that happened we sunk into the mud and it can obviously be quite lethal. We had to land on mud runway. There's destroyed planes and helicopters lining the sides of the runway. This compound was actually hit by rockets. You can see here that accidents do happen. Gibran, the pilot there, he was not exaggerating about the dangers of flying in this country and bringing vital aid to those who need it. You can see this is just... There's scraps of planes everywhere. This isn't a rare occurrence. like most airfields you'll go to in these far off places in in south sudan you're just gonna see plane graveyards have a look i wonder if the emergency exit was used crazy crazy crazy place see the cockpit up here yeah it's definitely not for the faint of heart so we're in maban so a lot of sudanese refugees fleeing from the horrors come here and again this is the reality of where they're fleeing where we're staying is a compound i'll show it to you later but there's a bunker right outside the room there has been attacks on that compound in the past i think it's relatively stable at the moment but you know it's south sudan it's unpredictable we're gonna head out to an area where there's a hundred thousand sudanese people living in a settlement where they've fled from the horrors of what's going on in sudan right now You have a beautiful smile. Her name is Muna. Muna. Okay, Muna. I'm Nick. Nick. Nice to meet you. Okay, so what is your story? Why are you here? They fled their country due to the war. They were in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. The war just pushed them away because the drones, the guns, everywhere. So you left Khartoum, the capital city. Can you explain to me about the journey getting out of Khartoum during the worst humanitarian crisis in the world? They suffered a lot during that war. Through her personal experience, the forces used to just attack them from time to time in their houses. There was a time that she was beaten badly. They come to their houses, they start looting their properties, They beat people, and even some girls in their neighborhoods also are raped. You said you were beaten. Would you mind sharing a bit more about that? The rapid support forces actually sneak into their house through the wall. They ask her, why are you still here? Everyone is not here. Many people just run away. Why are you here? If you are here, that means you are loyal to the government of Sudan, to the military. You are an agent who are providing them with information. That is why you are spying for the Sudan armed forces. They started beating them. They took their money, everything. After that, the following day in the morning, they started their journey and they left everything. And when they left, they have nothing to take with them. They just only ran away with their clothes. She's beaten actually with a metallic pole. She had serious bleeding. Then there was no hospital operating. After that happened, then you had to journey across two countries with a severe injury on your leg. How was that possible for you to get across the land? You're a very brave woman. Like for somebody like me, I could never understand what you've been through. Where I come from, nobody really knows too much about the small details about what's happening in your country. So do you have a message that you want to share or a call for any action? They want this war to stop as soon as possible. They flee their country because they're looking for a safe place and for a place where they can get a good education for their children. After the absolutely out-of-this-world journey that you've been on to get here, how important has the help that you have received here been to you and your family? she appreciated the support that is provided by the humanitarian agencies they managed to buy the bait also to buy some food those items actually supported them a lot because when they came here to south sudan they came with nothing it's amazing everything that you've been through that you are still so positive and you're still smiling so thank you so much Okay, so we've arrived at this huge, sprawling camp area. It kind of seems like it's spread out and it's rural, which it is. But make no mistake, there's 100,000 people just in this camp alone. And there's many camps along the north of South Sudan in different areas. over 1 million people have fled into South Sudan because of the war and 12 million displaced within Sudan in total. So we're going to go around, meet some of the people in these makeshift huts here and hear their stories. Some of them are going to be extremely heavy. The spirit of some of these people is so, so strong. After everything that they've been through, beatings, war they've seen relatives killed in front of them they've hidden from gunfire from drones from planes and then troops go in and do unspeakable things to women and young girls you can fill in the blanks and some of them still give you a smile so variations of war have existed in Sudan South Sudan used to be one country for many many years but the area we are in now is the new arrivals from the most recent the most extreme flare-up of war where the whole country is basically a no-fly zone and it's just terminology that is isn't allowed to be used on the internet this camp has only been built in 2024 some people have been here for a couple years some people have just recently arriving over so you still get the shell shock people and then the people who are deeply traumatized but are trying their best to set up some form of life for themselves with education for their children and obviously first and foremost the essentials like food shelter and water assalamu alaikum what's your name my name is Ali Tera Ali Tera yes okay nice to meet you This is your house? Yeah. Can you just tell us a little bit about why you've come to South Sudan? The leader country due to the war in Sudan, as well as forced recruitment in the army. What kinds of things were you seeing on a daily basis? Fighting, drones. You find yourself a victim of the fighting between the two parties. It was really scary because sometimes you see dead people on the street. even like to maybe help to take the body to be buried you may just get accused by one of the parties that you are supporting the other party and you will be arrested so that's why even they just leave the dead body on the street and they go where it come from there's just bodies everywhere yeah there are many dead bodies actually everywhere in their house they have a cousin there was a time he just stepped out just to purchase this then the fighting started the drones the guns and up to date they don't have any information about him and they concluded that their cousin is killed so sorry do you have a contact with your family back home or you have no idea unfortunately we lost communication with the family these are the makeshift toilets this This camp has only been established in 2024 because the war broke out in 2023. So that's how recent it is. Everything's just been kind of made that as a huge drop down there that is gigantic. It's like two of me high. These people are trying to make the best out of the situation they have. You can see here they've got crops that they're growing. Anything that they can do. So I shouldn't need to say it's very clear, but this is an extremely desperate situation. the most desperate situation in the world. And that's saying a lot considering what is going on in other parts of the world, as I'm sure you're all very aware of. So one of the craziest things about what's going on in Sudan is it's not really covered for something so huge, so extreme, the worst in the world by numbers, then it's not really been spoken about. Other wars get so much attention, but this one just kind of swept under the rug. People are suffering like your wildest nightmares could never imagine. You don't really see it on the news or anything. As-salamu alaykum. You good? Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Alaykum as-salam. Nice to meet you. The children of Sudan are some of the most persecuted children in the world. Boys, girls, you know, what happens to the girls. I'll let you do your own research. There's lots of information out there. You can find out what's happening. Yeah. I'm Abdullah. Abdullah? Hi. I'm Abdullah. I'm Nick. Nick. Yeah. This is your house? All of them? Ah, beautiful. So you've built these houses with your bare hands? Yes. Impressive. How long does it take to build one of these? In 3 days he completed the construction. In 3 days? Did you used to be in one of the temporary shacks? Yes. He was provided with a shelter. Now he moved to this one. And you fled the fighting in Sudan, right? Yes. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Three days. Something that especially the men face here is the risk of recruitment, getting recruited for the military forcibly. And if you don't fight for them, then they'll kill you. Fatima Yahya says she fled Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and was stopped by a group of RSF fighters in a village called Karamajé. Men are at a unique risk and women are at unique risk for obvious reasons for the women and then the men are taken and forced into killing and doing unspeakable things. What does the future hold for the people that flee Sudan and come here? That's another question. But in the meantime, it's a life or death question. So there is no option. coming here create the infrastructure for some kind of a long-term existence they're very smiley and welcoming but obviously below the surface it's a bit more than smiles assalamu alaikum what's your name my name is Ibrahim Ibrahim oh nice to meet you so we're here with Hannah and a beautiful daughter here Hannah where have you come from and why have you come here they flee their country due to the killing through these drones can you explain to me the journey that it took to get here the journey was really hard and difficult when they move from village to another village there is no enough food for them to eat are they walking the whole time they were walking the whole time the shooting by the team of drones sometimes even they get into a ditch to hide themselves they're hidden and dead from drones and guns yes yeah right yeah this is how they hide themselves yeah you're walking through these landscapes and then all of a sudden war breaks out your kids are running all around and you have to quickly take them into a ditch and hide from the war they come with a team of planes then they shoot them they see many dead bodies when the shooting is going on they hide themselves then when the situation gets calm and back to normal they start collecting the bodies and bury them this is obviously horrifying and you've been through so much and you're continuously fighting so what gives you the strength to go on i'm gaining this resilience because of my children if i'm weak i will lose my children if anything happened to me something will happen also to her children that's why they flee their country looking for a safe place we've just arrived at this hospital here and this hospital is is one of the main reasons why a lot of the refugees are at that refugee camp what they do in here is incredible considering how stretched they are for resources they have a maternity clinic nutrition clinic for children with acute severe malnutrition that's basically last stage malnutrition where they can't even process food anymore because their stomach lining's completely eroded it's basically eating itself and so they have to have special food with medicine mixed into it essentially. Mothers come from all around here, walk for hours to this clinic to get some sachets of food for their babies. Lots of people with malaria here. Malaria is obviously rife and they treat wounds from war. Like there's some horror stories of people coming here with broken legs, drone wounds. Like I said earlier, it's a humanitarian crisis on steroids on both sides of the border. So when it comes over here, it's compounded to the extreme. This is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and you can feel it. We're here with one of the clinicians here, right? Yes. And you're Dickens, right? Yeah. Nice to meet you. And James, you're a patient, right? Why are you at the hospital today? Is it malaria maybe? Maybe. In the war, what was the worst thing that you saw with your eyes? And sometimes a drone. You saw the drones? You were shot in here? Yeah, he was injured here. Oh, wow. Yeah. What about your family? One of his brothers was injured and his sister was killed. You were just talking about the drone warfare and how you can run and hide from bullets, but hiding from drones is almost impossible, right? Impossible. There would be families that would be together and they would have to run in all different directions and some family members might get killed Yes, and then maybe they don't see each other ever again. Yes, you work here in this hospital and you must have seen crazy things Can you tell us, you know the most heartbreaking story that you've witnessed most of them are treated here Here's a dressing place. Even this morning. I dress one of them He was badly injured in his left leg from the war in Sudan, the bone was broken But there's no equipment for us to see the bone. Right, x-ray. You don't have a radiologist? We don't have it here. So how do you treat people like that then? We dress them, apply some of the medicine that we have here Yeah, and then we bandage them. And you use sometimes like a brace, right? You'll put a piece of wood, two bits of wood, strap it up. So you really need more aid, right? Of course. And funds and supplies. Yes. It's desperate. Yeah. In this clinic, you look after the absolute landslide of refugees coming across the border, fleeing from terrors. And then you also have the local community here, the South Sudanese people who are also struggling because South Sudan also has a humanitarian crisis. Yes. So you're getting it from all angles. All angles. Yeah. And so your job is like extremely high pressure, right? Very high. Just constantly. Constantly. Right. smiling all the time yeah right like how do you stay so positive because i think we could learn a lot from you you're you're facing such extreme hardships you have to help people according to your capacity uh-huh yeah we depend on our hope in god because god is the one who provide this place for us to help that is why we have to be patient and i hope you're a very positive guy right you seem so yes i could only speak for myself if i was here witnessing the horrors that you're experiencing every day i would probably not be smiling so like of course it's it's amazing that to see your positivity it's inspiring sometimes we feel discouraged for some of the patients because they were shot are totally wounded so badly even we were about to cry sometimes because there are some patients who were totally wounded there's other one who had problem uh both feet were cut even the hands she was burned inside the house so his whole body was burned by the fire his hands were burnt off yes and his feet yes okay yeah so that we were so discouraged about this you were crying yes a lot right yeah you are crying a lot when was that yeah last last month oh really last month yeah wow yes what do you think personally about what is happening to the Sudanese people most evil one we have been involved for so many years and we hope that there may be one day the peace will come to our place so that we may go and rest even me i went to the to the bush when i was a small small child hiding from war yes long long time 1987 your whole life you have seen brutality killing war a lot and you're still smiling yeah I need to learn a lot from you. You know, you could teach... I think everybody watching right now could learn a lot from your outlook, you know, so amazing. Yeah, shukran. Thank you so much, sir. You're a legend. I appreciate it. Thank you. Keep up the great work, you know. No problem. We're here with Yasir now. Would you mind introducing this lady to us? Awatif Awatif. What kind of things were happening when she decided to run to South Sudan? The drone, the bomb come and bomb in the area where they were living and they decided to run to the nearer country, which is South Sudan. The markings on your face, is that from your tribe? This is cultural. It is cultural mark. Okay. Yes, it's not something happened. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you lost any family members? Yes, recently she has one who passed away less than one month. One of his son, he went to work mining gold and the drone come. At the gold mine? Yes, the drone came and dropped there. That was less than one month. First of all, I'm so sorry to hear that. Because everybody that I've spoken to has had a family member killed. Is that normal? It is not normal, it is because of the war. I mean, because of the war, it's normal? Yes, it is there all the time. If you could say a message to the people that are causing this war, the people that are making the war happen, what would that message be? As a mother, we want peace. We don't want this war to continue. There's a lot of challenges, no food in Rubiji's area, nowhere to go. We are crying for peace. so I've come to South Sudan with MAF which is a charity that flies essential aid all over the world in places that can't get access by road networks and places like South Sudan that where there's only you know a few hundred kilometers of paved road in the entire country and crossing the land is just not a possibility the roads that do exist are dangerous because of warfare and bandits while there's amazing NGOs all over MAF kind of connects and bridges that line between getting the aid out into these extremely rural areas. There's not even a paved road in this city. There's hardly any cars to be seen. The trucks that we're driving around in are basically the only cars that I've seen apart from some trucks. It's extremely limited. So what MAF does is they bring that essential aid, helping out the NGOs doing incredible work. But you know, with the rise of petrol prices and things, it's getting harder and harder to, you know, keep that aid flowing to where it's needed the most it's a mission that needs to keep going because without MAF getting aid to these people is significantly harder so we're back at the compound this is where i've been sleeping here gotta have that net don't want to be getting malaria just want to quickly show you the situation here so we've got like bolted doors um reinforced but just outside the room this is actually a bunker shelter so this is where you come in case of emergency and then this gets barricaded shut and there has been attacks on this compound in the past always good to have the room close to the bomb shelter won't complain about that what these people are facing is completely beyond comprehension some of the refugees that flee Sudan get to locations in South Sudan and And because, like I've mentioned, South Sudan has enough problems of its own that it needs to face. Some of the refugees come here and there is no means or support for them. So they have to make the tough decision, do they starve in South Sudan because they can't access resources and food? Or do they return across the border and face drone warfare? Those are the decisions that you have to make as a Sudanese refugee. Starve or drone. That's why organizations like MAF are absolutely vital to save as many lives as possible. I mean, the amount of help needed here is, you know, the people that are working here and are helping are putting themselves in such extreme situations, you know, whether that be the refugees themselves becoming clinicians supporting their own country people, or if it's the amazing pilots. Could you just tell me a bit about MAF, getting the aid into the such remote areas, right? Because we often hear about NGOs and the charities that do incredible work on the ground. But MAF is almost like the arteries that supply these remote areas with the aid so the NGOs can do their amazing work. Yeah, that's true. Over here in South Sudan, we have a fleet of five Cessna Caravan. You're just joining one of the five. It's an amazing workhorse. for many organizations serving over here in South Sudan air transport is the only safe way to get somewhere as discussed many organizations can't serve on the ground without that vital air bridge that we can build is there any message that you would like to share with the world can be anything that you'd like yeah yeah i think for us all it is important to to um kind of consider where you are in your life and I think for many people this area of the world will feel far far away but I'm meeting women children men every day and they're suffering and it is so easy to just continue your life but I think it's also really important to widen your view and to see countries like this who are in huge need see the people and acknowledge them and also get into an action mode and it can be anything it can be donating your time donating your money prayer whatever works for you but i think we all have a task in responding to crisis like this yeah beautifully for it thank you so much appreciate it mate thank you amazing very natural so that was my trip to the border of sudan i'm going to be leaving some information in the description of the video with a link where you can donate and help out with MAF's incredible life-saving work MAF have pilots from all over the world and the incredible thing about the MAF pilots is is that they actually fundraise their own salaries in their own countries freeing up costs to go directly to those in need. And as you've seen, they have expert pilots that use systems to manage the many security risks they face, as well as a fleet of top-end aircraft. MAF operates to international safety standards. For the equivalent of less than $10, you can fuel six miles of flight, bringing life-changing care and practical support to refugees, like you've seen in this video at the hospital. This is the first line of defense for those who have just experienced these unimaginable hardships crossing over searching in desperation for anything or anyone that can help them there are also some different price points on the website if you want to donate more or less it's entirely up to you the website's really well laid out and very clear to understand so please have a look but of course absolutely no pressure to donate i know that it's extremely hard out there with the cost of living if you're not able to donate then if you would like to share this video with anybody that you think it might be relevant for what's happening in sudan right now is crossing the line of human rights in so many ways to put it lightly it's the biggest tragedy that the world faces today by numbers i've seen what we can do when we all come together on this channel we can make great change so if we all chip in a little bit here i know it's going to make a huge difference so a huge thank you to MAF for everything they do and showing me their life-changing work. My heart goes to the people of Sudan. We are crying for peace.