The Duchess of Edinburgh has described harrowing scenes of sexual exploitation after meeting refugees from Sudan’s civil war who fled to neighboring Chad.
“People have to exchange food and water for sex, for rape. That is violence provoked through conflict. It is used as a bargaining tool,” Sophie said after visiting this conflict-affected region of Africa.
She spoke to women who had traveled to Chad to escape the border conflict in Sudan.
“These women have no choice but to leave. And even then, they are lucky if some of them can escape, because… if they leave their house, they are killed,” said Sophie, who was moved to tears by the moving testimonies.
This was the first royal visit to Chad and the three-day trip, carried out at the request of the British Foreign Office, was not officially announced until it was over on Monday.
The purpose of the visit, Buckingham Palace said, was to draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Sudan, which has now caused problems for neighboring Chad.
More than 10 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the conflict in Sudan, the Palace says, while many of the women and children are now arriving in Chad as refugees.
“This is a massive human catastrophe and Chad is having to pick up the pieces when the country cannot afford to do so,” said Sophie.
At a medical center in Adre, near the border with Sudan, Sophie told the Press Association about the “devastating” experiences she had been described and how they had upset her.
“What they’re doing to the kids is… I can’t even use the words,” she said.
Sophie had spoken to a woman who had fled a town in Sudan’s western Darfur region, where the population was facing threats and violence.
Her son and brothers had been rounded up and taken away and Sophie said the woman saw the bodies lying “like a wall” in the street.
The Duchess, 59, had traveled to this part of Chad with Unicef representatives and visited a refugee camp where almost a quarter of a million people had gathered, with many more arriving from Sudan.
She spoke to the mother of a small child who had traveled for ten days to get to safety and did not know what had happened during the fighting with her husband.
“While the world and its attention are firmly focused on other conflicts around the world, the humanitarian crisis facing the people of Sudan and landing on the shores of Chad cannot be ignored,” the Duchess of Edinburgh said.
This is Sophie’s last visit to highlight the issue of violence against women in times of armed conflict.
Earlier this year, she became the first royal to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Her trips often went to destinations not normally included on royal tours, including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and Sierra Leone.
