Nestled in the Jebel Marra mountains of Sudan's Darfur region lies the village of Sortoni, a once-thriving humanitarian hub that has been largely abandoned. Its residents say they have been ignored by the current emergency response to the war. As the last international NGO still working there, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is struggling to fill the gaps left behind in recent years.
Crumbling remains of a former safe haven
The humanitarian response across Darfur has been called a failure. In Sortoni, this failure is even more striking because of how displaced people have been abandoned.
In 2016, as violence escalated across the Darfur region, thousands fled to Sortoni. The village, which was emptied during the 2003 war, became a camp for 32,000 displaced people. For a while, life slowly began to stabilize. A UN peacekeeping mission provided a sense of safety, and international organizations built water systems, set up schools, and distributed food.
All of that stopped in in April 2023 as conflict spread across Sudan and international NGOs, including the UN, withdrew. The camp was abandoned at the same time thousands of new arrivals were seeking refuge. Since then, no aid organizations have returned to Sortoni except MSF.
Displaced people arrive to empty buildings and dry taps
Today, approximately 55,000 camp residents live among the remains of aid infrastructure left behind: empty distribution points and dried water taps. Still, people continue to arrive, while nothing is being rebuilt.
“We lack everything,” says Nura, a mother of four who has lived in the camp since 2016. “Life was always hard in Sortoni, but now water is our biggest problem. We’ve had shortages for two years.”
The camp’s 16 water points used to be fed by two pumping stations, but both are no longer operating due to lack of maintenance. People must now walk long distances to reach two open wells on the edge of the camp. The water is unsafe, but it is all they have.
MSF is supporting the local primary health care center, which provides basic consultations, maternity services, and referrals to a hospital in Rokero, which is located three hours away and is the only medical facility available for camp residents and nearby villages. It is not enough.
MSF also runs a nutrition program at the primary health care center. Since the start of 2025, 612 children under 5 have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition.
No aid and nothing to buy
While food distributions have resumed in other parts of Darfur such as Rokero, Funga, and Golo, Sortoni has been left out. “We see aid trucks passing by, but they never stop,” says Zeineb, a member of the community. “We are suffering too. Why are we not considered?”
These distributions were vital for people who have lost their livelihoods. Displaced people have little to no land for agriculture, and market prices have surged beyond reach. “There is nothing to buy, so we keep cooking the same porridge—millet flour mixed with water,” adds Zeineb.
Half of Sortoni’s population is under 15 years old, and the other half sees no clear future. The remains of a dozen classrooms stand desolate in the center of the camp, with faded blue paint, no more books, and no one providing salaries for the teachers.
“Our people have been forgotten,” says Suad, a member of the camp’s women’s committee. “They left us alone in a desperate situation.”
