The late afternoon sun beats down as Khadidja stands on the wall of her brick house and points to the meagre meal she prepared for her family: a dough made of millet with a thin green sauce. “Everything has become so expensive lately," she mutters.

The 40-year-old mother of eight lives in the town of Adré, just 400 metres from the border with Sudan, in Chad's eastern Ouaddai Province. Once a quiet border town of 68,000 inhabitants, Adré's population has more than doubled, as tens of thousands of people of all ages have arrived from Sudan since mid-June, when a new wave of violence broke out in El Geneina, the main town in West Darfur.

Khadidja's eldest daughter, Hila, is in her early 20s. She says she feels the pain of those who fled the war. Her own family has taken in two Sudanese teenagers who fled El Geneina in mid-June.

“But when you're hungry, it's hard to hear the cries of others,” adds Hila.(more)