Rachida's story

As told to Kari Costanza, World Vision USA

When the conflict arrived, Rachida’s family ran for their lives.

“We were sitting at home,” says Rachida’s aunt, Halime, sitting close to Rachida’s other aunt Gamara. “[Armed militants] knocked. They said, ‘Get out.’ They started beating us.” Gamara was beaten with an electric cable.

“We started running away,” she says. “They came in trucks. They started shooting. We ran barefoot. We walked to Adré [in neighbouring Chad], our feet swelling.”

Within minutes, 8-year-old Rachida lost her family—her father, mother, and three brothers—shot to death. Her grandfather was killed, too. “She saw the bodies of her father and mother,” says her aunt, Halime.

Rachida’s brothers, 15, 18, and 25, were taking care of their grandfather who had been sick. When they heard the gunfire, they ran with him to the mosque where they thought they’d be safe.

“[They] took him out of the mosque and shot him,” says Halime. Then they killed the boys. The 25-year-old had been married less than a year. His widow lives in the camp”.

The family’s trip from their home in El Geneina to Adré was nightmarish. When they came to a gully, they stopped, thirsty. “We saw bodies in the water, but we had to drink it anyway,” says Rachida.

“Rachida cried when she saw the bodies,” says Gamara. “She began asking questions. ‘My father was killed by people we don’t know. What should I do?’”

Rachida and her family arrived to Adré in June 2023 as the rainy season began.

“We slept in a school compound,” says her aunt, Halime. “We collected pieces of wood and covered them with our clothes.” It was a difficult time.

“We were totally dependent,” Halime says. “We had no food. We just sat under the shelter in the rain until it stopped.”

Rachida and her family were transferred to Metché camp after four miserable months in Adré. While just 25 miles from Adré, it is a 90-minute bumpy drive on sand to Metché. In eastern Chad, there is very little infrastructure and few roads.

Nearly 40,000 people live in Metché camp, which opened in August 2023. Some of them, like Rachida and her family, live in shelters provided by World Vision.

On a sweltering day in Metché—more than 100 degrees—it is much cooler inside the house than outside. Rachida was delighted when she saw the shelter where she now lives with her aunt Gamara. Aunt Halime and the rest of the family live nearby. “I was very happy. I can protect myself from the wind and rain,” she says. Her aunts protect her, too. “I love them,” she says.

This case study is part of a larger report. Please click here to check it.