“We must stop searching for a crisis that fits existing models and start designing responses that fit the crisis we actually have.”
For the past two years, I have been visiting gathering sites for displaced people in eastern Sudan while working in the emergency response team of Médecins Sans Frontières. Many were schools, their classrooms crowded with women and children who had lost everything in the war. Each time, I would do an assessment: collecting data, speaking with families, and checking the facilities.
But on one occasion, I remember passing by a school-turned-camp in the evening and being surprised to find far fewer people than when I visited during the day. When I asked where everyone had gone, a displaced woman gave me a simple answer: “They go home. They live with relatives in the city. They only come here in the morning to see if an NGO will give them something. They have learned that if you stay in the community, you will never get aid.”
In that moment, I understood: These families were performing the role of “the displaced person in a camp” because they believed it was the only way to be visible to an aid system that was fundamentally blind to the reality of their situation.
The conflict in Sudan (fought primarily between the national army and the paramilitary-turned-rebel Rapid Support Forces) has created the largest internal displacement crisis in the world, with nearly 12 million people forced to flee their homes.
Yet one of the most important facts about this crisis – one the international aid system has struggled to grasp – is that it is not solely a crisis of camps.
The data confirms what anyone on the ground can see. An estimated two thirds of Sudan’s displaced people are living within host communities – absorbed into the homes of relatives, friends, and even strangers.
This isn’t a small detail; it is a paradigm-shifting reality that makes the traditional, logistics-heavy aid model redundant – yet the system has struggled to adapt.
Endless assessments, little action
The failure shouldn’t be surprising. The humanitarian system is built for what is visible, concentrated, and contained. It excels at setting up large-scale food distributions, erecting rows of tents, and providing parallel services like clinics and water points.
When the conflict first erupted in Sudan, the initial approach from many international NGOs was therefore to provide emergency cash and food to the few people they found at gathering sites and camps.
This work was – and remains – essential, as significant numbers of people do live in these sites. It is especially important for the long-established camps in the western Darfur region, and across the border in eastern Chad, where many Darfuris have fled.
Still, in many parts of Sudan – especially central, northern, and eastern areas – displaced people are scattered across thousands of neighbourhoods, where the traditional aid model has not served them. Instead, it produces endless assessments and little action – because the “beneficiaries” are not where the system expects them to be.
The humanitarian system is built for what is visible, concentrated, and contained. It excels at setting up large-scale food distributions, erecting rows of tents, and providing parallel services like clinics and water poin
In some instances, the absence of community-based support has driven displaced families to establish the gathering sites – spaces that are often deserted after dark. In other cases, the design of aid interventions has reinforced and encouraged people to stay in them.
The approach has also overlooked the immense strain on hosts. These families, often struggling themselves, have opened their homes and shared their resources, absorbing millions of displaced people with a resilience and social solidarity deeply rooted in Sudanese society. By focusing only on the visibly displaced, we have risked fuelling resentment and eroding the very social fabric that has so far prevented a complete societal collapse.
Area-based interventions have also often been largely absent. Instead of supporting the entire community – strengthening local clinics for everyone, rehabilitating water pumps that both displaced people and hosts rely on, injecting cash that supports local markets for the benefit of all – aid has been narrowly targeting the small fraction of people gathered at designated sites.
The invisible majority
Of course, some international humanitarian organisations are trying to support displaced people living within communities. Others are assisting host families, repairing water pumps in major towns, or implementing projects that target local populations.
But much more needs to be done to rethink the shape of aid for Sudan’s displaced. We must stop searching for a crisis that fits existing models and start designing responses that fit the crisis we actually have. While the work at gathering sites is important, the real challenge lies in the crowded homes, the strained clinics, and the struggling markets of the towns and cities that are holding Sudan together.
This requires a shift in thinking, away from a camp-centric model to an area-based and community-focused approach. That means we must stop seeing people as categories and start seeing them as communities. The goal should be to support a neighbourhood, not just the displaced people within it. It means strengthening existing local services, not building parallel humanitarian ones. And it means trusting people with cash assistance, which allows them to meet their own needs with dignity while stimulating the local economy that everyone depends on.
We need to see the invisible majority and recognise the extraordinary resilience they show every single day. Aid must meet them where they are, not where we wish they would be.
This article was first published by the New Humanitarian:
