As the world’s largest displacement crisis continues in Sudan, refugees in Burlington quietly seek help

Mashaer Elabaid’s family is stuck in the war zone of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Her brother was shot in the shoulder and the bullet remains in his body.

Samiya Ali’s parents’ home in Darfur was bombed last month, killing one of her cousins.

Abbas Mohamed’s village in Gezira state was recently attacked by warring militia groups. His family was captured, and his uncle was killed.

Fifteen months after civil war broke out in what was Africa’s largest country, 12 resettled refugees from northern Sudan gathered in a backyard in Burlington’s Old North End last week to share stories of devastation and despair. All of them have family members who have been attacked, captured, injured, trapped or are trying to escape the conflict zone.

Thousands of miles away from the war, the small group in Burlington is looking for ways to help.

“Things are not good. People need money, food, health care, safe passage,” said Asma Ali Abunaib, 51, of Williston, who helped translate some of the accounts. “The reality is, we do not have a government. So all the help is coming from people like us.”

She and her husband recently returned from Egypt, where they helped resettle family members who had fled the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Ensuring the family’s safe passage into the country and securing stable housing there was dangerous and expensive, she said. Just to get one person out of the conflict zone to a relatively safer area in the north can cost $400-$500; to get out of the country can cost thousands.

“We lost contact for two months,” she said, referring to her family members. “Thanks to God they made it to Egypt.”

Many didn’t, she noted. A heat wave in the sub-Saharan region last month claimed the lives of dozens braving the perilous journey, including one of her former neighbors, Abunaib said.

The continued clash between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has destroyed public systems and blocked access to food and other humanitarian aid, residents told VTDigger.

Sudan has the largest number of people displaced in the world — almost 11 million, including 7.3 million who have been internally displaced since April 2023, according to a report from the United Nations. About 1.9 million have migrated to the neighboring countries of South Sudan, Chad and Egypt, with recent influxes in Libya and Uganda. As the warring groups block access to food and other aid, about half the population — 26 million — are on the brink of famine, according to news reports and the UN.

Since the war broke out in April 2023, seven migrants from Sudan have arrived directly to Vermont, according to Tracy Dolan, director of the state refugee office. Exact numbers are hard to pin down because some may arrive via other states or through pathways other than the refugee program. The 2020 census counted 57 Sudanese people living in Vermont.

Among the newcomers is Musa Basheer, 35, who arrived last year from the vast western region of Darfur, where ethnic cleansing has created a “Rwanda-like” genocide, the BBC reported in May.

At the Burlington gathering he recounted how his family members were separated and in different parts of Sudan. His mother is sick and doesn’t have her medication, he said. He lost contact with her last month, after she reached the South Sudan border. His father-in-law, meanwhile, is stuck in Khartoum.

Basheer delivered this account with no display of emotion as he sat in one of the 12 chairs arranged in a circle around a table laden with tea and snacks in the backyard of the Burlington residents who hosted them.

A dozen families in the greater Burlington area have been meeting weekly for about two years to find community and, more recently, to brainstorm ways of helping their families back home. None of them knew each other in Sudan. This May they started a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 — money they say will allow them to evacuate 70 to 80 family members.

“While many of our North Sudanese community members do not want to ask for help, their loved ones are experiencing famine, are at risk of being bombed, raped, and tortured,” the campaign page reads.

“We meet to check on each other weekly,” said Abunaib, explaining that they’re grappling with trauma and feelings of helplessness.

They are in contact with about 100 people across Vermont who have relocated from northern Sudan, she said. They also have a group chat to keep each other updated.

Amid the quiet, heartbreaking accounts is a feeling of disconnect and a reluctance to ask for help. They are residents who have homes and jobs and yet don’t quite have a voice or feel like they belong. And they accept that few in the area know about what’s happening 6,000 miles away.

“The whole country is at war but no one cares,” said Abunaib, who came to Vermont in 2016 to pursue higher education.

She is no stranger to navigating conflict. Abunaib has worked in the humanitarian field in Sudan and at the UN. She has a PhD in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Vermont and is director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Champlain Valley School District.

Abunaib said she hopes the gatherings will help them organize, find voice and bring about change for the new Sudanese in Vermont. Among their goals: Settle on a name for the group.

Sudan’s history is long and complex. There is already a Sudanese Foundation of Vermont that was created after the first wave of immigration with the group known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. The civil war in 1987 drove out an estimated 20,000 young boys from their homes in what is now South Sudan, a separate country since 2011.

While the more recent residents are on good terms with that organization and have felt supported by it, Abunaib said the makeup and needs of her peers are different.

In this group, Michael Kori, 50, is the most long-term resident. He came to the United States 19 years ago from northern Sudan and helped create the recent fundraiser. The community needs much more but it’s a start, he said. Food prices, for example, have soared 75% since the war broke out last year, according to the UN.

With the rebel factions controlling access to the internet and taking a cut of any overseas funding, helping family members or even getting timely information is expensive and hard.

Andrews Koko, 36, of South Burlington has been in Vermont for two and a half years. His and his wife’s families are trapped in the White Nile state in the southwestern part of the country. Meanwhile, his mother-in-law who needed surgery was attacked on her way to Gezira state and had to retreat back to Khartoum.

“We cannot say they are safe,” Koko said, adding that they are only able to contact them infrequently via the encrypted messaging program WhatsApp.

“Everybody has relatives there stuck in a bad situation,” he said.

The price of internet in the conflict zone has escalated to about $2 per hour, an amount that could pay for groceries and feed a family for a week before the war, Abunaib estimated. Now, it is not enough to cover one meal.

The war to gain control of the state and its resources has decimated basic services, including health care, leaving the injured and the ill with no recourse except to migrate.

Another member of the group, Abdallah Toto, 55, of Essex said his sister died and other family members had to be evacuated from Khartoum after a couple of them lost limbs in a bomb attack. That was two months ago. He has no updates.

“It’s a heartbreaking situation,” he said. “They escape fighting in one area, they get attacked in another.”

To make matters worse, many neighboring countries are not accepting refugees. According to the Guardian, Egypt denied asylum to about 800 refugees from Sudan in the first three months of the year.

People have no water, no shelter, no food and are stuck in limbo, said Koko.

“You see the videos of what’s happening there, you feel helpless and sad,” Abunaib said.

Other than UN reports and occasional WhatsApp contact, residents said they get news via TikTok and other social media.

After a while, other residents hesitantly voiced the deeper concern, that beyond their own community in Vermont, no one knows about their plight, and they are not sure how to go about seeking help or solidarity given that lack of awareness.

As the sun set, casting long shadows in the backyard, a host walked around the circle with a

silver tray, offering small glass cups of sweet black tea. Another piled up donuts on the table and urged people to partake.

Amid stark accounts of death and devastation, three children ran around the yard playing in the golden light.

Corrections: The story previously misstated Asma Ali Abunaib’s town of residence and a photo caption misidentified Abbas Mohamed.

Read the story on VTDigger here: As the world’s largest displacement crisis continues in Sudan, refugees in Burlington quietly seek help .