02/05/2023 1:20 pm (act. 02/05/2023 1:20 pm)
Sudanese refugee ©APA/AFP
According to the UN, ongoing fighting in Sudan has forced more than 330,000 people to flee within the country since mid-April. A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday in Geneva. Most of them, 240,000 people, are displaced in the southern and western areas of Darfur, an IOM spokesman said. Even before the conflict, there were 3.7 million people displaced in Sudan as a result of past fighting.
The number of people seeking refuge in neighboring countries has surpassed 100,000, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Many would make it to Chad, South Sudan and Egypt. Among them are Sudanese, but also people from other countries who have found refuge in Sudan. UNHCR’s plans are based on the fact that more than 800,000 people could flee if the fighting continues. “We hope it doesn’t come to that,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi wrote on Twitter on Monday.
Aid organizations lack $1.5 billion to deal with the humanitarian crisis, which has been exacerbated by the fighting. Even before the most recent violence, Sudan was already heavily dependent on international humanitarian aid. The UN appeal for 2023 grants worth US$1.75 billion was only 14% covered as of early May. UN organizations urgently need money to be able to provide aid, said a spokesman for the UN emergency relief office, OCHA.
Six World Health Organization (WHO) containers that arrived in Port Sudan by ship were emptied on Tuesday and the material transferred to warehouses, a WHO spokesman in Geneva said. The UN already had a lot of relief material in Sudan before the conflict and not all the camps were looted, said the OCHA spokesman. Material will be distributed as soon as the security situation permits.
At the end of last week, the Ministry of Health recorded around 530 dead and 4,600 wounded in the fighting. In the chaos of battles, however, it is difficult for authorities to maintain an overview. They assume that the true numbers are significantly higher.
In Sudan, army units under the command of military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan have been fighting the RSF militia led by General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (Hemedti) for two weeks. The head of the army categorically rejects direct negotiations with the head of the RSF. Hemedti doesn’t want to talk to Burhan until the army stops his attacks. The two generals took over leadership of Sudan through joint military coups.