(Eric) Earlier this month, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) issued what amounted to a grim warning to Darfuri refugees, particularly the vast population near Tiné, just over the border from North Darfur in eastern Chad:
(Adre, Chad | July 3)
The statement indicated that the UNHCR will reduce the number of its offices and suspend some humanitarian activities in eastern Chad, which will impact the provision of basic services.
These measures are expected to impact health, education, and protection services provided by the UNHCR to Sudanese refugees crowded into eastern Chad. (Darfur24)
While Team Zamzam in Exile has now resumed operations in the Tiné area (see below), the huge number of refugees they encounter that have not been transported to one of the permanent UN refugee camps and there is only a minimum UN humanitarian presence. And yet the population near Tiné only grows: if the UN transports 1,000 people a day to the nearby camps (with a total population of about 80,000), 3,000 more Darfuris will enter Chad in the Tiné area. The net population—already over 100,000—is growing very rapidly, with no end in sight. Despite many queries, I have heard of no UN or INGO plans to ramp up their work. This is what makes the July 3 statement by UNHCR so worrying.
Indeed, this massive population increase is also what makes the funding of Team Zamzam so urgent: until the UN and broader international humanitarian community are able to provide adequate relief to the people gathered near Tiné, there will be far too much for the team to do. We need only remember that Zamzam was the epicenter of the famine declared by the UN one year ago—and all evidence suggests that malnutrition rates continue to rise steeply. The people who cross into Chad do not leave the malnutrition behind…
Please help Team Zamzam feed them: contribute here.
Compounding the humanitarian crisis in Tiné is the belated but inevitable onset of the heavy seasonal rains, which began last week. This will make life miserable for those without shelter on the Chad side of the border—and will exacerbate health and sanitation issues. But even worse will be the lives of those on the Darfur/Sudan side of the border, who arrive at Tiné and find they cannot cross the riverbed (wadi) that floods and becomes impassable when the rains are at their heaviest. There is no bridge or other means to cross the wadi, which actually divides the Darfur town of Tina from the much more substantial and well-supplied Chadian town of Tiné (Djabaraba).
In short, the desperate needs that Team Zamzam confronts are daunting, but the counselors are all ready to commit fully to the effort.
Here it must be said that the tasks of UN agencies and many INGOs have been made greater if not impossible because of the cruelly thoughtless and savage cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—cuts that continue to ripple out through the broader humanitarian community. The ANNEX to this update contains several news items addressing specifically the dire consequences for the people of Sudan.
Painfully emblematic is the decision by the Trump administration to allow 500 metric tons of critically needed, highly fortified supplementary food biscuits to go unused. They sit in the UAE, about to expire, and the plan is to burn the food when the expiration is reached (at a cost of $130,000). They will never reach the children in Afghanistan and Pakistan whom they were meant to assist.
I find this morally incomprehensible and yet all too revealing of how Trump and his appointees see suffering in our world.
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First Monthly Update from the Counselors of “Team Zamzam in Exile”: July 20, 2025
This is the first report since the displacement of the Zamzam IDP camp in mid-April 2025. Its purpose is to shed light on the current humanitarian situation on the ground; to explain what Team Zamzam has been able to achieve; and to present the testimonies of some survivors who managed to reach there.
First of all, thanks to God Almighty and thanks to you all, the supporters and donors of Team Zamzam, we were able to reassemble in the town of Tiné on the Sudan-Chad border after immense suffering and walking on foot, crossing over several hundred kilometers to safety in exile.
After the agony and the ordeal of two months of scattering around, we were able to reunite most of the members except for one missing person (and two are still besieged in El Fasher city).
In concluding this section, we again renew our thanks and sincere gratitude to all those who have supported us throughout these difficult times and extend our profound gratitude to Professor Eric Reeves, Nancy Reeves and Gaffar Mohammud Saeneen. Without your support, consistent efforts, and help with coordination, Team Zamzam and it could not have survived to continue in exile.
[A full account by the Team of the humanitarian crisis they face and what provisions they have been able to make is contained in the ANNEX, along with very recent and all too revealing news dispatches on what lies ahead.]
Team Zamzam in Tine:
What has been accomplished during the past two months and what is looking to achieve in coming months?
After working for nearly five years alongside the displaced people of Zamzam, suddenly we counsellors found ourselves forced to flee with nearly all others in search of safety and security. After an ordeal of many days, we finally settled here in Tiné. After studying the situation carefully and making thorough assessments on the difficult living conditions confronting the refugees fleeing Zamzam, we have decided to start our work and immediately set up two tents in the center of the shelter complex, which is located 6 kilometres to the southwest of the Tiné town.
The two tents are in two locations separated by a distance of about 600 meters, and the idea is to link up the entire population of the shelter centers to this location so that we might be able to provide them necessary help, moral support, and guidance for the future. Our work here in Tiné isn’t different from what we have been doing in Zamzam IDP camp, even though we are here in a foreign country; but the conditions of living, the hardships, and the needs of the refugees are no different from what they endured in Zamzam [a tremendous number of the more than 600,000 IDPs in Zamzam have fled toward Chad; we have no accurate census, but the number may now exceed 150,000 refugees, which would overwhelm the several nearby established refugee camps, all of them only a small fraction of the size of Zamzam before it was attacked by the RSF—ER]
Besides the breakfast programme which we have started—providing fresh milk served with zalabia and cooked rice with milk—we have begun to distribute food packages to the families with the most vulnerable children. We have also provided painkilling pills to the victims of sexual violence and fistula patients; additionally, we have also been able to provide counselling to victims of sexual violence. The breakfast kitchen is set up three times a week, while other activities continue on a daily basis except Friday and Saturday.
Work carried out June – July 2025
Counseling sessions (see ANNEX for testimonials from victims)