OUADDAĆ, Chad
The Duchess of Edinburgh has
described distressing scenes of sexual exploitation, after meeting refugees
from Sudan's civil war who had fled to neighbouring Chad.Sophie heard the stories of women who had escaped the war in Sudan
"People are having to
exchange food and water for sex, for rape. That is violence that is being
enacted through conflict. It is being used as a bargaining tool," said
Sophie, after a visit to this conflict-hit region of Africa.
She spoke to women who had
travelled into Chad to escape the conflict across the border in Sudan.
"These women have no
option but to leave. And, even then, they're lucky if some of them can get
away, because... if they leave their houses they get killed," said Sophie,
who was moved to tears by the harrowing testimonies.
This was the first royal visit
to Chad and the three-day trip, carried out at the request of the UK's Foreign
Office, was not officially announced until it was over on Monday.
The purpose of the visit, says
Buckingham Palace, was to draw attention to the deteriorating humanitarian
crisis caused by the war in Sudan, which was now producing challenges for
neighbouring Chad.
More than 10 million people
have been forced to flee their homes by the conflict in Sudan, says the Palace,
with women and children a high proportion of those now arriving as refugees in
Chad.
"This is a human
catastrophe that is vast and Chad is having to pick up the pieces when it can
ill afford to do so," said Sophie.
At a medical centre in Adre,
near the border with Sudan, Sophie told the Press Association about the
"devastating" experiences that had been described to her and how it
had upset her.
"What they do to the
children is... I can't even use the words," she said.
Sophie had spoken to a woman
who had fled from a town in the west Darfur region of Sudan, with the
population facing threats and violence.
Her son and brothers had been
rounded up and taken away and Sophie said the woman had seen bodies piled up in
the street "like a wall".
The duchess, 59, had travelled
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 still
arriving from Sudan.
She spoke to the mother of a
small child who had travelled for 10 days to reach safety and did not know what
had happened to her husband in the fighting.
"Whilst the world and its
attention is being focused very much on other conflicts around the world, the
humanitarian crisis being faced by the people of Sudan, which is landing on
Chad's shores, cannot be ignored," said the Duchess of Edinburgh.
This is the latest visit by
Sophie to highlight the issue of violence against women at times of armed
conflict.
Earlier this year she became
the first royal to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Her trips have often been to
the type of destinations not usually on royal tours, including South Sudan, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq and Sierra Leone.
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