UN: Sharp rise in refugee numbers to South Sudan
Published: Tuesday, Dec 10th 2024, 15:10
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According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, more and more people are fleeing to South Sudan in the face of increasing fighting in Sudan.
In the past week, more than 20,000 Sudanese have crossed the border into the south, said a UNHCR spokeswoman in Geneva. Since Saturday, between 7,000 and 10,000 new arrivals have been arriving daily, most of them women and children.
Thousands are on foot from the border to the town of Renk, around 40 kilometers away, where a reception center is already overcrowded with almost 17,000 people. According to the UN, increasing tensions at the Joda border crossing are a cause for concern. At the weekend, there was fighting there between Sudanese government troops and the RSF militia, as confirmed by representatives of aid organizations.
Joda is the point at which most refugees cross the border into South Sudan. Of the 900,000 people who have fled to the south since the start of the bloody power struggle in Sudan, around 700,000 have entered the country via Joda. Increasingly, however, refugees are now also arriving via other, informal routes, where they are difficult for the UN and aid organizations to reach.
Since the beginning of the power struggle between Sudan's de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, more than twelve million people have been displaced, more than three million of them in neighboring countries. These states include countries such as South Sudan and Chad, which are themselves among the poorest states in the world. There is also currently a cholera outbreak in South Sudan, including in Renk.
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