BBCEvery day, families walk along a dry and dusty path in Chad, fleeing war and famine in Sudan – scenes that have clearly shaken the UK foreign secretary.
Under the sweltering sun, David Lamy visited the Adre border post on Friday to witness first-hand the impact of Sudan's civil war, which erupted when the army and its former ally, the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF), fell out.
Those who make it across the border have often been separated from their families in the chaos to escape, desperate to see if their relatives have made it safely.
“It's some of the most horrifying things I've ever heard and seen in my life,” Lammy said.
“Overwhelmingly, what I've seen here in Chad, on the border with Sudan, the women and children who are fleeing for their lives – tell stories of widespread slaughter, maiming, burning, sexual violence against them, their children. And in the middle of it all , Hunger, hunger – such an incredible situation.
The foreign minister saw dozens of women wrapped in light, multicolored shawls and holding children of various ages passing by on horse-drawn carts.
They looked tired, sitting on bags holding the few belongings they could bring with them on the long journey to safety.
“Alhamdulillah” means “praise be to God,” notes Halima Abdallah when I ask her how she feels about having made it over the line.
The 28-year-old is relieved despite the tragedy of losing one of her children while fleeing Darfur, the western region of Sudan that has seen some of the most devastating violence in the past 21 months – much of it said to have been from RSF.
“First I went to El-Geneina, but I had to flee again when fighting broke out there,” she says, explaining how she then separated from her husband and two other children.
Aid workers in Adre say they are trying to reunite families after they cross the border.
“Some mothers told us they had to choose which children to run with because they couldn't carry them in one go,” an aid worker told the BBC.
Some abandoned children have been brought across the border by aid workers and placed in foster care while efforts are made to locate their families.
Standing on the Chadian side of the border, Lamy spoke to families who were fleeing and the aid workers who received them.
After meeting some of the refugees, he told the BBC: “All these people have stories – very, very desperate stories of fleeing violence, of being killed in their families, of being raped, tortured, mutilated.”
“I was just sitting with a woman who showed me burn marks. She had been burned by soldiers up and down her arms, beaten and raped. This is desperate and we need to bring the world's attention and bring the suffering to an end .”
But he outlined what he described as a “hierarchy of conflict” that has seemingly put Sudan at the bottom, even though it is currently the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.
In November last year, the UK foreign secretary led a resolution calling for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council, which Russia vetoed.
“How could you veto the plight that is going on here?” he asked, sounding annoyed.
He told the BBC he now plans to convene in London a meeting of Sudan's neighbors such as Chad and Egypt and other “international partners to mediate peace”.
Several attempts at peace talks led by the US and Saudi Arabia have failed to resolve the conflict.
As mediation stalled, the US subsequently sanctioned the generals leading both sides of the war. It also determined that the RSF and its allies had committed genocide.
More than 12 million people have fled their homes since fighting broke out in April 2023.
Caught in the middle of the bitter fighting are more than 50 million civilians, nearly half of whom are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, according to UN agencies.
Malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world here. At the Traned clinic in Adre, health workers measure the circumference of six-month-old Rasma Ibrahim's upper body.
The color-coded bar goes all the way to the red edge. The impact of her health status can last her entire life. One in seven children here in Adre is malnourished.
The UK will continue to push for a ceasefire, Lammy said.
It has already doubled aid to 200 million pounds ($250 million) and is calling on other donor countries to step up.
Aid agencies, however, are concerned by US President-elect Donald Trump's announcement of a 90-day freeze on foreign aid.
A break in support from one of the world's biggest donors will no doubt have devastating consequences for crises like Sudan. The UN is already struggling to meet its targets for badly needed aid money.
In 2024 an appeal was made for $2.7 billion (£2.2 billion) to support Sudan, but only 57% of that money was secured.
At the Adre Food Distribution Center, sacks of split yellow peas, millet, sorghum and cans of cooking oil and other supplies are stacked neatly atop tarps as families from a nearby refugee camp queue for their quotas.
The cries of babies tied by scarves to the backs of mothers' tails fill the air. One by one, families are called to collect their rations.
One helps lift a sack of dry food onto another's shoulder, who then hums as he makes his way back to his makeshift home.
Adre's population was about 40,000 before Sudan's civil war began and has now more than quintupled, according to local volunteers.
Refugees here are among the lucky ones. Just across the border in Darfur, famine was declared in August at Zamzam camp, near the town of El-Fasher, which RSF has besieged for more than a year.
On Friday came the devastating news that one of El-Fasher's last functioning hospitals had been hit by a drone, killing at least 30 people. Regional authorities said RSF paramilitaries were the culprits, but they have not responded to the claim.
Back in December, the UN Famine Review Committee said famine had spread to more areas in Darfur to Abu Shuq and Al-Salam camps and parts of South Kordofan state.
The famine spread despite the reopening of the Adre border, which had been closed by the army on suspicion of being used to transport arms to its rivals.
As we left the border, three or four trucks with UN World Food Program banners were slowly blowing along the dusty road crossing into Sudan.
They will provide much-needed assistance to villages, towns and displacement camps across the border. But it is still far from enough.
“We need to step up and wake up now to this huge, huge crisis,” Lammy said.
More on the war in Sudan:
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