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STORY: BAKU / SUDANESE ACTIVIST INTERVIEW
TRT: 04:29
SOURCE: UNIFEED / UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNHCR FOOTAGE ON SCREEN
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN / FILES
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
1. Wide shot, flooded area in Kassala, Sudan
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“The morning of Saturday, 15th of April 2023 was a very normal morning until we heard a very big explosion to the point that our whole house was shaking. And then, unfortunately, these explosions and sounds never stopped. And basically, until now, it's over 600 days since the war started in Sudan. We stayed in our house for three weeks, and then we started getting out of running out of food and water and electricity. And then moving out was a must.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
3. Med shot of flooding with people’s belongings washed away
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“We took a very long trip. We've been shot at a couple of times, but we made it to my brother-in-law’s house at the beginning. And unfortunately, a few days later, the fighting expanded and reached the other house, too. So, I decided to try to leave Sudan.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
5. Wide shot, flooded school compound that is hosting internally displaced people
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“I did a 6-hour drive with my son. He was nine months old at that time. So, I was driving the car, and he was only the only person with me. And then we reached the air base, and we fled Sudan with a military aircraft, basically.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
7. Wide shot of makeshift structure washed away in the flooding
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“It was very devastating because in my 6-hours’ drive, I didn't know most of the streets that I normally drive in because of the destruction and most of the places are burned. So, there was no marks anymore. You know, everything is just gray and destroyed. And there was a lot of killing, a lot of on people. Yeah, I made it out of Sudan after almost 6 weeks of the war, but since I still don't have a home, a place to call home.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
9. Wide shot of flooded area
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“And then a few months later, which is basically the last rainy season, we had a very devastating flood. The war in Sudan caused more than 12 million refugees and IDPs.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
11. Med shot, tent structure in a pool of water
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“The biggest number of IDPs were concentrated in these states where it was flooded. The total area that was flooded is bigger than Germany in its size and definitely had a lot of the camps inside of it. Currently, Sudan is living the biggest humanitarian crisis ever and even bigger than Ukraine and Gaza together combined. So, if you combine the need from Gaza and Ukraine together, it's less then actually the need in Sudan, and climate change is not giving them a break.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
13. Med shot, inside of a tent covered in mud after the flooding
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“So, of course, climate change hit the most vulnerable and they are called the most vulnerable because their response to climate change and climate crisis is normally by far less than the normal situation.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
15. Close up, clothes in the mud
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“We must consider climate change when we are planning for humanitarian interventions. Making climate sensitive humanitarian is not a privilege right now. It's a key and it's a must, basically. Otherwise, all of our humanitarian efforts will just flood with the water.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
17. Wide shot, flood water inside a tent
18 NOVEMBER 2024, BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Nisreen Elsaim, peace and climate activist:
“Climate change and conflict are correlated. Conflicts make people more vulnerable to climate change and climate change makes conflict more possible, more occurring and more frequent.”
FILE – UNHCR – CREDIT ON SCREEN - 08 AUGUST 2024, KASSALA, SUDAN
19. Med shot, displaced family setting up their tent
Sudanese peace and climate activist Nisreen Elsaim said that the war in Sudan caused more than 12 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), “and climate change is not giving them a break.”
Elsaim understands the nexus between violence and extreme weather events firsthand, having been forced to flee her home where conflict was exacerbated by flooding.
In an UNifeed interview on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, she explained, “The morning of Saturday, 15th of April 2023 was a very normal morning until we heard a very big explosion to the point that our whole house was shaking. And then, unfortunately, these explosions and sounds never stopped. And basically, until now, it's over 600 days since the war started in Sudan. We stayed in our house for three weeks, and then we started getting out of running out of food and water and electricity. And then moving out was a must.”
She continued, “We took a very long trip. We've been shot at a couple of times, but we made it to my brother-in-law’s house at the beginning. And unfortunately, a few days later, the fighting expanded and reached the other house, too. So, I decided to try to leave Sudan.”
She said, “I did a 6-hour drive with my son. He was nine months old at that time. So, I was driving the car and he was only the only person with me. And then we reached the air base, and we fled Sudan with a military aircraft, basically.”
She also said, “It was very devastating because in my 6-hours’ drive, I didn't know most of the streets that I normally drive in because of the destruction and most of the places are burned. So, there was no marks anymore. You know, everything is just gray and destroyed. And there was a lot of killing, a lot of on people. Yeah, I made it out of Sudan after almost 6 weeks of the war, but since I still don't have a home, a place to call home.”
She added, “And then a few months later, which is basically the last rainy season, we had a very devastating flood. The war in Sudan caused more than 12 million refugees and IDPs.”
She stressed, “The biggest number of IDPs were concentrated in these states where it was flooded. The total area that was flooded is bigger than Germany in its size and definitely had a lot of the camps inside of it. Currently, Sudan is living the biggest humanitarian crisis ever and even bigger than Ukraine and Gaza together combined. So, if you combine the need from Gaza and Ukraine together, it's less, than actually the need in Sudan, and climate change is not giving them a break.”
She noted, “So, of course, climate change hit the most vulnerable and they are called the most vulnerable because their response to climate change and climate crisis is normally by far less than the normal situation.”
She stated, “We must consider climate change when we are planning for humanitarian interventions. Making climate sensitive humanitarian is not a privilege right now. It's a key and it's a must, basically. Otherwise, all of our humanitarian efforts will just flood with the water.”
She concluded, “Climate change and conflict are correlated. Conflicts make people more vulnerable to climate change and climate change makes conflict more possible, more occurring and more frequent.”
Nisreen Elsaim (Sudan) is a climate activist and junior negotiator at intergovernmental climate change platforms with experience across a range of environmental topics, and she was part of the social movement that brought about democratic change in Sudan.
In 2020, she was appointed to chair the UN Secretary-General Youth Adviser on Climate Change.
