In Her Own Words

“A shorter transfer time could have saved her life. When [the midwife] told me, I was shocked and cried. As women, we put ourselves in her place. She left behind two daughters—it’s truly tragic. A mother’s departure is not just the loss of children or a husband, but the disintegration of an entire family. It’s very difficult, a soul is lost.”

These are the words of a doctor in Yemen, describing to a Guardian reporter the death of a young woman named Fatima, who died on the way to a hospital 1.5 hours away when her nearby hospital lost US funding and could no longer offer emergency obstetric care.

US foreign aid cuts have closed mobile clinics, family health houses, and camp hospitals—often forcing women to travel dangerously far to access lifesaving care.

Read more about the impact of these cuts in WRC’s report, A Year of Harms.

“I am 19 years old and studied up to the second year of secondary school. I have been moving since October 2024, when we left Bambiro and we settled here in Rukoko. [Note: names of locations have been changed to protect women’s identity.] During the invasion, my mother was shot as we were fleeing. Our big sister came to tell us: Mom was shot, and she died on the spot. We had no way to transport her body along with all our luggage. We organized a mourning for Mom, then after a month, my father also died. I don’t know if it is because he was thinking too much about the war and about Mom.

My little sister was raped. She was 7 years old, now she is 8. Several girls were raped… Imagine seeing a girl who comes to tell you that she was raped. There was a hospital that treated all these victims, but it was just a tent, set up in the camp for internally displaced people. My sister was treated there, too.

Now we are living with our big brother and his wife, but they no longer have work. My sister-in-law used to sell fish in the camp market, which was destroyed by the M23. After the camp was destroyed, my older brother rented a small house and that’s where we all live with my older sister and our older brother’s family. There are nine of us in the family.
The needs are enormous, especially for finding work and going to school. Take me, for example, if I could just find someone who would help me with my studies, I could go back to school. Or if I could find some money and sell some things, I could use the money to go back to school.”

These are the words of a young woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who was forced to flee her home due to an escalation of violence. WRC interviewed her for our new report on how renewed conflict combined with humanitarian funding cuts have impacted internally displaced women.

Read the report here.

“I am 35 years old, from the Al-Jazeera state. Before the war, we were safe. I worked for a while selling tea and then became a housewife after marriage. My husband works as a farmer. Thank God, I was living well; we had everything we needed.

I have had a disability in my legs since I was three years old (I had polio), and I have undergone several surgeries. Thank God, I can now move, but only for short distances.

One day [after the war broke out], the Rapid Support Forces entered the house asking for the car keys. We told them we did not have cars, so they left us. On the morning of the second day, we fled to the Sheikh Al-Samani area, as it is a safe area. We have six children, and we fled together with our small family, but the rest of my relatives are still there in the war zone.

After five months, the area was bombed. [With] the worsening of the situation, we were forced to flee to Port Sudan. In Port Sudan, we stayed on the street a long time waiting to be assigned to one of the shelters. Good-hearted people provided us with food and drink, but the straw huts we were in could not withstand the rain. We have been here for about 15 days now and we receive one meal a day.

My situation is like everyone else here. No one is working. We left our homes with nothing. We need clothes, household items, and the children need enough food. May God improve our situation.”

These are the words of a woman in Sudan who was forced to flee to different parts of the country with her family, multiple times because of the war. WRC interviewed her more than a year ago for a report that showcases the stories of 22 internally displaced and refugee Sudanese women from all walks of life. Today, the conflict in Sudan is escalating to new extremes, with the RSF’s takeover of El Fasher, following a 500 day siege, leading to mass atrocities—including reported rapes, mass killings, and the massacre of 500 people in a maternity hospital.

Read the report here.

“I am 45 years old and I come from a village in South Kivu. For work, I washed gold and my husband looked for gold. I was drawing water to wash gold [one day], and suddenly my husband was killed [in front of me].

I fled to another village, where everything I had was looted, so I fled again to Bukavu with my 9 children. The eldest is 23 years old and the youngest is two years old. There was nowhere to live, so that’s how I came to live with my children in the house of an acquaintance. My children have nothing to eat and do not study. [There are] many difficulties and hardships that pain me. We women have many problems. We who are widows and displaced, we need shelters where we can live with our children. [Where I live now], we sleep like mice. We put out the fire and tidy up the kitchen to find somewhere to sleep. Sometimes I don’t sleep because I can’t find any place to lean against. May this war stop, I pray that God gives us peace.”

These are the words of a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who was forced to flee with her children because of the war. WRC interviewed her for our report on how the conflict has impacted internally displaced women.

Read the report here.

“I was pregnant when the war broke out and we moved to the White Nile. For three days on the road I had labor pains. I gave birth in the street and had a hemorrhage. I was taken to Al-Qatana Hospital. [When] I left the hospital and arrived in Kosti, we were received in a shelter center.

I fell ill and was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure. The newborn girl suffered from a hole in her heart that was discovered in one of the follow-ups at the mobile clinic inside the shelter center. Now she has been transferred to the Kosti Cardiac Center, and she needs an operation.

I [also have] a little girl who suffers from severe anemia. Before the war in Khartoum, she used to get blood. Now I don’t have money for treatment.
I hope to be funded so that I can start a business project that will allow me to provide treatment, food, clothing, and a visit to a cardiologist.”

These are the words of H.H., a woman in Sudan who was forced to flee with her family at the outbreak of war and now lives in a shelter for displaced people. WRC interviewed her for our report about the impact of the conflict in Sudan on internally displaced and refugee women.

Read the report here.

“Most days we eat once, sometimes not at all. My younger children cry through the night and I have no answer for them. We have no gas or electricity, so I cook over scraps of wood or cardboard in old tins. The smoke makes us cough and sick, but there is no other way. I have grown frail and malnourished. I starve myself so my children can eat. This is what survival has become. The children are traumatized. They no longer ask about school, they only ask if they will eat tomorrow. Every attempt to get food feels like another wound. Recently I walked for hours to reach an aid distribution point. There were thousands of desperate people, crying and pushing while soldiers fired in the air. When I finally reached the front, everything was gone. I came back to my children empty-handed. My dreams are not complicated. I want my children to be safe, to eat until they are full, to return to their studies, and to grow up with dignity.”

These are the words of a woman in Gaza—a nurse, widow, and mother of six doing everything she can to keep herself and her children alive in the famine, while under constant siege.

This woman shared her story with WRC researchers for our report documenting the gendered impacts of food insecurity and famine in Gaza. In addition to first-person testimonies from eight women in Gaza, the report shares research findings and recommendations for governments, international bodies, and humanitarian actors. The women and girls of Gaza urgently need a ceasefire and humanitarian relief.

Read the report here.