In Tiné, a barren desert town in eastern Chad, the first humanitarian crisis in the post-American world is developing. In the continuous, 100-degree high temperatures, thousands of people fled the civil war in Darfur, Sudan, recently arrived there. Many people have nothing - their reports were beaten, robbed or raped in the process - and there was little to be waiting for them in Tiné. To some extent, only international humanitarian workers can receive them due to the devastating cuts in foreign aid by the Trump administration. Tiné lacks food, water, medicine and shelter, and there are few resources to move people anywhere else.

A few months ago, I reported in Sudan with photographer Lynsey Addario. She recently returned to the area and spent a few days filming and talking with some people who flowed into Tiné. According to aid workers on the ground, more than 30,000 people have arrived there since the intensification of regional combat in mid-April, and now more than 3,500 people are arriving every day. The photos below capture the despair of people who have nowhere to go, the lack of infrastructure to help them, the desolation of the empty desert.

Tiné and most of the people in the nearby towns came from Zamzam, a famine camp that suffered for the displaced people in North Darfur. Aid trucks carrying food have long been difficult to reach Zamzam due to ongoing violence, poor roads and the reluctance of the Sudanese government to let international organizations operate in areas controlled by its competitors. The stakes have been further raised by the militia of the main opposition of the Sudanese army in the past few weeks. The RSF tightened the siege of El-Fasher, the largest city in North Darfur, and began shelling Zamzam itself.

At the heart of the RSF is the Arabic-speaking nomads, once known as Janjaweed, who have long clashed with non-Arab farmers in this part of Sudan. Their deadly competition is not a religious dispute, both countries are overwhelmingly Muslim - racial differences are vague. Nevertheless, Tini's refugees say RSF soldiers are interrogating people who escaped from Zamzam and El-Fasher and murdering people who seem "African" rather than "Arabs" who speak the wrong language or who come from the wrong tribe. "If your language is Arabic, they will let you go," said a woman named Fatima Suleiman. She said those who did not speak were murdered on the spot. Her dark-skinned son Ahmed is a student who knows English, and he is also spared because his friends are not that lucky. He watched them get shot.

In theory, the Trump administration still supports emergency humanitarian aid. But in reality, cuts to logistics and personnel, sudden changes in payments, and associated chaos have hindered all international humanitarian organizations working in Tiné and anywhere else. The Chadian Red Cross lacks the means of transport for the injured. The consumables of the World Food Program are unreliable because the support system has been cut. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is laying off employees due to budget constraints. Jean-Paul Habamungu Samvura, who represents UNHCR in eastern Chad, said that in his 20-year career, he did not remember much fewer refugees.

“Our big donor is the United States,” Sam Wolla said. But in February, UNHCR was instructed to change its services. "We are used to seeing lifesaving activities (such as providing shelter) as lifesaving activities," he explained. This has brought an unsolvable problem to his team: "Where to let people at least give them some shadows." Some of his employees were told that their work would end in June, but the crisis would not end in June.

Local Sudanese group, one Mutual Aid Movement Called the Emergency Response Room, donations are being collected from overseas and starting to serve meals to refugees, just like in Sudan. But if the number of displaced people continues to increase as the scale of the disaster expands, these volunteers will also need more resources, even if only to ensure that everyone in Tini is having a meal every day. Witnesses reported that people died of desire on their way to Tiné, with malnourished children arriving among refugees.

It was a dramatic moment of a devastating war. The violence in Sudan has displaced people, and in the sum of Ukraine and Gaza, more people have been displaced. Statements about Sudan are regularly published in the United Nations and other international forums. However, the people in these photos seem to have been abandoned in the empty landscape. With the U.S. withdrawal and the decline of international institutions, their ordeal may be a harbinger of what is about to happen.