From Darfur to Lesvos: Turning displacement into hope for Sudan’s future
From Darfur to Lesvos: Turning displacement into hope for Sudan’s future
Munir participates in a meeting organized in the reception centre of Lesvos island to mark the campaign “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence”.
On a dusty road in North Darfur, long before he would find himself as a refugee in Greece, Munir Bassi first wondered what could be done for people uprooted by conflict. It was 2014, and even then, refugee camps like Zamzam were growing, filled with people who had lost everything. “That’s when the idea began,” he says. “I kept thinking: these people deserve more than survival. They deserve hope and a chance to rebuild.”
Years later, that idea would become “Let’s Have Hope”, a refugee-led organization now supporting tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by the war in Sudan. But the path to founding it began with Munir’s own displacement.
Munir was born in a small village near Kutum, in Sudan’s North Darfur region. In 2018, escalating violence forced him and his family to flee initially to Egypt and eventually to Greece in 2023, where he arrived on the island of Samos. Even in the island’s reception centre, while waiting for his asylum request to be processed, Munir did not stand still. He volunteered as an interpreter, taught English, and supported community advocacy.
“My biggest driving force was, and remains, my passion for humanitarian work,” he says.
As soon as Munir was recognized as a refugee in early 2024, his work expanded across Greece: from Kavala to Thessaloniki, and later to Lesvos, where he took on multiple roles with the organization Movement on the Ground. By 2024, he was coordinating programmes, supporting community volunteers, and contributing to the “Camp to CampUs” initiative on Lesvos, helping refugees access education.
But Munir always dreamed bigger. In early 2025, he founded “Let’s Have Hope”, an organization built by refugees for refugees, working directly in Sudan’s hardest-hit areas.
“We want to shift from being aid receivers to being aid deliverers,” he says. “That is our principle.”
“Let’s Have Hope” operates amid the vast and fast‑growing displacement crisis in Sudan and neighbouring countries
Today, “Let’s Have Hope” operates amid the vast and fast‑growing displacement crisis in Sudan, where one in every four Sudanese has been forced from their home. After violence escalated in El Fasher, the team relocated to Kutum. Not all made it safely - one volunteer was killed while delivering aid. Despite the risks, their work continues. They run a communal kitchen, distribute food and hygiene items, and provide protection services, particularly for women and girls. Strategic planning and administration are handled from Greece, where Munir works alongside a small group of colleagues. In total, the organization has reached approximately 60,000 people.
Women’s leadership is central to their vision. “If conditions on the ground in Sudan were different,” Munir says, “our organization would be run exclusively by women. They are smart, they are strong, they can do great things.”
When conflict and lack of support leave no choices
Three years into the conflict, millions of Sudanese have fled to neighbouring countries - Chad, South Sudan, Egypt – many of them border areas already struggling with fragile economies and overstretched public services.
“Arrivals to Europe are only the tip of a much larger population remaining close to Sudan’s borders waiting for fighting to stop to go back home,” says UNHCR Representative in Greece, Laura Lo Castro. “Host countries in the region continue to show extraordinary solidarity, but their capacity is overstretched. They urgently need support and, most importantly, an end to the conflict and ongoing human rights violations”
With little prospect of peace, severely restricted humanitarian access inside Sudan and drastically reduced humanitarian assistance in neighbouring countries hosting refugees, a growing number of people are being pushed into repeated displacement. Some have no choice but to return to devastated home areas where basic services - water, electricity, healthcare, education - no longer exist. Others make painful decisions, with families often sending their strongest and most resilient son(s) on what they know will be a very dangerous journey, driven not by choice but by dwindling support and services in first countries of asylum.
Hawaye, with her daugther Halima Ibrahim who is a year old at the malnutrition centre for infancts and children at Farchana hospital in Chad.
“People are fleeing because they have no other options and face detention, human rights violations and exploitation along the way, until the fortunate few manage to reach the shores of Europe,” says Lo Castro. “They deserve protection and safe, legal pathways, not smugglers.”
For Munir, addressing these challenges requires shifting how the world works with forcibly displaced people.
“We need local communities and refugees to plan our common future together,” he says. In his view, meaningful inclusion means refugees not only sitting at the table but shaping it. “All problems between communities can be solved with communication. When you understand me and I understand you, we become friends.”
Integration, he emphasizes, is not just about jobs - it is about mutual understanding.
Despite the devastation, Munir sees signs of progress, especially among Sudanese women stepping into leadership roles. “Women are becoming more active in society,” he says. “We need this everywhere, not just in big cities.”
For now, his work continues across borders - from Greece to Sudan - connecting communities, mobilizing support, and building something that began as an idea more than a decade ago.
His greatest wish is simple: an end to the war, and the chance for Sudanese families to return home safely.
As Sudan enters a fourth year of conflict, Munir’s message is a reminder that while emergency aid saves lives, solutions save futures - and that among the millions displaced, many are already working tirelessly to rebuild the future they dream of.