Lives Between Borders: Stories from Sudan, South Africa, and Ethiopia
The notion of a ‘border’ is often abstract, a line on a map. But for millions across Africa, these lines are intensely physical, political, and personal. They are boundaries of conflict, corridors of aspiration, and sites of profound human experience. In Sudan, South Africa, and Ethiopia, the lives of those dwelling “between borders” offer a powerful, often harrowing, portrait of resilience, struggle, and the enduring quest for a better life.
The Perilous Journey: Between Sudan and Ethiopia
The shared border between Sudan and Ethiopia has become a crucible for those fleeing conflict and seeking refuge. For many, the journey is not merely a crossing, but a brutal test of survival.
Stories from this region are saturated with the desperation of flight. Refugees from Sudan, escaping violence, often arrive in Ethiopia only to face new perils. Accounts speak of repeated attacks from bandits and militias, even within designated refugee camps. In one documented instance, thousands of Sudanese refugees fled a camp and took shelter in a nearby forest, preferring the dangers of “wild animals” to the continuous threat of armed raids, robbery, and sexual violence.
The borderlands are also a space of complex, overlapping conflicts. In the Ethiopia-South Sudan border area, transboundary conflict is fueled by cattle raiding, child abduction, and disputes over grazing lands. The border, intended to define separate nations, often becomes the very zone where ethnic tensions and resource scarcity violently intersect, blurring the lines of national identity and security.
For those fleeing, the border is a temporary shield, but one that is often brittle. It represents the immediate hope of safety, yet demands an unimaginable sacrifice: the abandonment of home, the risk of abduction and extortion, and the constant negotiation of hostile territories and desperate people.
The Long Road South: Ethiopia to South Africa
While the immediate borders are fraught with local conflict, a longer, more neglected migration route stretches from the Horn of Africa southwards, often culminating in South Africa. This journey is primarily one of economic aspiration mixed with forced displacement.
Migrants from Ethiopia and other East African nations often view South Africa as a land of opportunity, a place where they believe they can “change their future for the better.” The route is clandestine and dangerous, often managed by smuggling networks.
The personal stories are wrenching. A young man from a refugee camp in Kenya, frustrated by a life of poverty and limited rations, is willing to risk everything to reach South Africa, fully aware that “people die there.” The journey itself is a litany of risks: extortion, kidnappings by criminal gangs, and the constant fear of police detection. Those who make it to Nairobi are often passed from one smuggler’s safe-house to the next, waiting for an onward journey that may take months and cost a lifetime of savings.
Upon arrival in South Africa, the struggles morph from surviving a journey to surviving in a new context. While some are able to start businesses and even support family back home, the threat of xenophobic violence and crime remains a constant, dark shadow. A shop owner from Ethiopia, after successfully building a life in Johannesburg, was forced to move to Durban after he and a friend were robbed and shot, a grim reminder that the journey’s end is not always the end of the danger.
Beyond the Line: The Enduring Human Spirit
The stories from Sudan, South Africa, and Ethiopia, though separated by geography and specific context, share a common theme: the border is not just a dividing line, but a dynamic, charged space of human action.
It is where family ties are stretched across vast distances, with members splitting up strategically to access aid or find livelihood opportunities. It is where local communities clash over resources, and where the most vulnerable, women and children, bear the heaviest burden of insecurity and violence.
Yet, these narratives are also filled with remarkable resilience. They show the incredible lengths people will go to rebuild a life, to ensure their children have a chance at education, or simply to survive one more day. The “Lives Between Borders” are a testament to the fact that while political lines are drawn to separate, the universal human drives for safety, prosperity, and connection will always find a way to cross them.
These are not just stories of victims; they are stories of agents navigating a world that has placed an invisible, often lethal, barrier in their path. Their journeys compel us to look beyond the lines on the map and see the turbulent, striving humanity living right in their midst.
Leena EISA
This WanaData story was supported by Code for Africa and the Digital Democracy Initiative as part of the Digitalise Youth project, funded by the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)