South Sudan © Robin Meldrum/MSF
More than 80,000 refugees fleeing violence in Blue Nile State in Sudan have gathered in Doro and Jamam camps in South Sudan. This photo was taken in the dry season, with a window of opportunity to get everything ready prior to the rainy season closing fast.

A Sudanese woman living in  Jamam refugee camp.

“We fled the first fighting, still in the rainy season. We didn’t know something was going to happen. I used to work in a clinic and suddenly our salaries were no longer paid. Along the way, we were moving but we could not race along. It took us over two weeks to escape. People were moving slowly, by day and night. We drank water from the rivers. In those days, we walked without even changing our clothes. Many people got sick along the way, especially of malaria. I had brought a box of injectable quinine, so I used to try to treat the children. Sometimes it didn’t work, and finally the drugs I had ran out and I could no longer help. As we fled, we passed through villages that were half-empty. Some of them had already fled, but others fled with us when they saw us running.

Once we arrived in El Fuj [a border-crossing point near Jamam], we were safe. We stayed there 2 or 3 weeks. For the first time, people started to feel the pains they had not felt so far because they were so concentrated on running and saving their lives.”

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