On donkeys or horses, by cart or by foot, hundreds of Sudanese, most of them women and children, each day cross a small, dry stream to find safety in neighbouring Chad.
As of Monday, at least 20,000 people had found refuge at a makeshift camp in the Chadian border village of Koufroun, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNCHR, which manages their influx along with other UN agencies.
The village lies a few hundred metres (yards) from the border with West Darfur, which with the capital Khartoum is among the worst-hit provinces in the Sudan conflict.
Most of those arriving have come from the Sudanese town of Tendelti, about 20 kilometres — the theatre of intense fighting between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his ex-deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Many show up empty-handed — a sign of a desperate getaway.
The UN says at least 100 people were killed in West Darfur in the past week. The toll may be far higher, but information from the area is lacking. Some carry belongings and provisions on the arduous trek in the overwhelming Sahelian heat.
They search for shelter under huge but rare acacia trees, under which their predecessors and humani-tarian workers have set up makeshift camps. Scat-tered in small groups over two square kilometres (about half a square mile), some use garments and veils to provide shade from the merciless sun.
Under one of the trees, Mahamat Hassan Hamad had built a room with walls of straw and a roof of plastic sheeting, held up by branches, to provide shelter for himself, his wife and their 11 children.
