Over a million people flee to South Sudan as Sudan conflict grinds on: UN

More than one million people have fled the war in Sudan to seek refuge in neighbouring South Sudan, according to the United Nations.

In its latest update on one of the world’s worst displacement crises, the UN issued new data on Tuesday showing that more than 770,000 people have fled through the Joda crossing on South Sudan’s northern border with Sudan in the last 21 months.

Tens of thousands more have crossed the border at other points, bringing the total to have fled to South Sudan since the war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) erupted in April 2023 to more than a million, according to the statement issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“The arrival of over a million people into South Sudan is a stark and sobering statistic and truly shows the increasing scale of this crisis,” the UNHCR’s Sanaa Abdalla Omer said.

Most crossing the border are South Sudanese nationals who had previously fled from civil war in the world’s newest country, the statement noted.

“The people of South Sudan continue to show extraordinary generosity, welcoming those in need and sharing what little resources they have, but they cannot shoulder this massive responsibility alone,” Omer added.

Two transit centres in Renk County on South Sudan’s northern border, which have been designed for fewer than 5,000 people, are now hosting more than 16,000.

The UN has called for more support for both displaced people and the communities hosting them, warning that resources in South Sudan such as healthcare, water and shelter had become “dangerously overstretched”.

Famine

The war continues to rage as its second anniversary approaches, with the RSF and SAF accusing each other of war crimes, including targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and some 25 million – half of the country’s population – are suffering from severe hunger and in urgent need of humanitarian aid.

Last month, the UN-backed global hunger-monitoring group, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published a report outlining famine in five areas, including in Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.

Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shouk and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in el-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, as well as in residential and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, according to the report.