Sudan – Six months of crisis and forced displacement
Nearly 6 million people have been forced to flee since mid-April – an average of 1 million people per month
Fighting between two rival military factions erupted in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on 15 April. The violence quickly spread to other parts of the country and continues, despite repeated announcements of ceasefires.
The impact on civilians and refugees caught in the crossfire has been catastrophic. Millions of Sudanese and refugees living in the country have had to flee to other parts of Sudan or cross into neighbouring countries. Malnutrition rates are surging and measles and other diseases are running rampant. Nearly 25 million people – half the population – are now vulnerable and in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and protection.
Meanwhile, funding for the response has lagged far behind the needs – a revised humanitarian response plan for 2023 was only 33 per cent funded as of 3 October.
With no sign of an urgently needed end to the fighting, the crisis threatens to consume the country and destabilize the region as Sudan’s neighbours struggle to absorb a rising influx of refugees and returnees.
Press PLAY to see clashes and attacks recorded since 16 April by ACLED
Inside Sudan
Internally displaced people
Before April, over 3.7 million people were already living in displacement in Sudan, the majority in the western region of Darfur. In the six months since the start of the current crisis, an estimated 4.5 million people were newly uprooted and forced to flee their homes to safer parts of the country. Sudan now has one of the largest and fastest-growing internal displacement situations in the world.
A boat transports people to Um Sangour refugee camp in Sudan's southern White Nile State from the town of Aljabalain. ©UNHCR/Ala Kheir
Density of IDPs by district in May 2023 (Source: DTM) - 1 dot = 200 people
Most of the newly displaced are from Khartoum and have taken refuge in River Nile, East Darfur, Northern, Southern Darfur, Sennar, and White Nile States, staying in displacement sites or in rented accommodation. Many lack access to food, water, shelter, electricity, education and health care. Conditions in displacement sites have further deteriorated since the start of the rainy season as flooding brings an increase in water-borne diseases. Outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, dengue fever and malaria have been reported across the country.
An agricultural centre in Sudan's Al Qadarif state has been turned into a temporary home for families that have fled Khartoum. ©UNHCR/Ala Kheir
Density of IDPs by district in September 2023 (Source: DTM) - 1 dot = 200 people
Months of fighting in Sudan have brought the country’s health-care system to its knees. Many health facilities have come under attack and are no longer functioning, while others are critically short of staff, medicines and equipment.
According to a recent report by UNHCR, more than 1,200 children under 5 died in White Nile State alone between mid-May and mid-September due to a measles outbreak combined with high levels of malnutrition.
Refugees displaced inside Sudan
The population of Um Sangour Camp in White Nile State has more than doubled since the start of the conflict. ©UNHCR/Ala Kheir
Prior to the conflict, Sudan was home to over 1 million refugees – the second-highest refugee population in Africa. The majority were from South Sudan and lived in Khartoum and White Nile States, but refugees fleeing the crisis in northern Ethiopia starting in late 2020 also found refuge in eastern Sudan, while others came from Eritrea, Syria and the Central African Republic. Most lived in informal settlements and urban areas while others stayed in formal camps, particularly in East Sudan and White Nile States.
Since the start of the crisis, some 188,000 refugees have fled to other parts of the country in search of safety. Some have moved to IDP sites, while others have sought safety in existing refugee camps that, even before the conflict, suffered from overcrowding and a lack of resources. In White Nile State alone, an additional 144,000 refugees and asylum-seekers are reported to have arrived fleeing Khartoum and other conflict areas, increasing the pre-crisis refugee population of 297,000 by almost 50 per cent.
Outside Sudan
Sudanese fleeing the country
In the first six months of the crisis, over 820,000 Sudanese have fled their country. The largest number have crossed into Chad, which borders Sudan’s Darfur region. Following harrowing journeys, refugees are arriving in eastern Chad traumatized and hungry . Some witnessed loved ones being killed, and others arrived with gunshot wounds and accompanied by malnourished children.
UNHCR staff at the Koufroun site in the Ouaddaï region of Chad, pre-register newly arrived Sudanese refugees. ©UNHCR/Colin Delfosse
Conditions in border towns are dire and overcrowded. Refugees are living in makeshift shelters with limited access to basic services such as water, health care and food. UNHCR is working with the Government of Chad and partners to meet refugees’ immediate needs and to move them to pre-existing and newly-established refugee camps away from the border.
Egypt has received the second-largest number of Sudanese fleeing the fighting. Like other neighbouring countries impacted by the crisis, Egypt was already hosting a large refugee population. Most refugees, including the new arrivals from Sudan, are living in urban areas of Cairo and North Coast Governorates. UNHCR is registering them, providing them with protection and basic assistance, and scaling up the delivery of cash assistance to the most vulnerable.
Monira Mohamed (left) and her family fled Sudan in April and are taking refuge in Cairo. ©UNHCR/Pedro Costa Gomes
So far, around 26,000 Sudanese refugees have sought safety in Ethiopia, with most arriving in the Amhara and Benishangul Gumz regions. Help for new arrivals is sorely lacking, due to the volatile security situation in Amhara and a general shortage of humanitarian staff and supplies. A cholera outbreak at the Kumer refugee site in Amhara affected hundreds of refugees and halted transfers away from overcrowded border entry points, and malaria cases at the site are also on the rise.
Some 30,000 Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers have crossed into South Sudan, along with 266,000 South Sudanese returnees. Tens of thousands remain in the Renk border area awaiting onward transportation to camps, their areas of origin, or destinations of choice. However, funding shortfalls, heavy seasonal rains, and poor infrastructure have prevented people from leaving, leading to overcrowding and worsening conditions.
Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese returnees stay in makeshift shelters outside the transit centre in Renk, South Sudan. ©UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
Most of the 15,000 Sudanese refugees who have arrived in the Central African Republic have fled fighting and the collapse of law and order in Sudan’s South Darfur region. The vast majority are women and children – including unaccompanied and separated children – who have settled in spontaneous sites close to the border. In addition to food insecurity and spiralling commodity prices, insecurity remains a major concern in these porous border areas, with refugees exposed to the risk of attacks, forced recruitment by armed groups and sexual violence.
A Sudanese refugee with four of his children at the UNHCR-supported Korsi site, near Birao, Central African Republic. ©UNHCR/Josselin Brémaud
Refugees Fleeing Sudan
Since the start of the conflict, just over 20,000 non-Sudanese refugees have fled the country that had given them refuge. The largest number are Eritreans and South Sudanese who have crossed into Ethiopia and Egypt.
Far outnumbering this group are refugees who have prematurely returned to their home countries. The vast majority of these are South Sudanese. Much smaller numbers have also returned to the Central African Republic and Ethiopia.
Source: UNHCR Data Portal
Premature Returns
Some 266,000 South Sudanese who fled to Sudan to escape their country’s own brutal civil war have made the return journey over the past six months.
But they have returned to a country still facing instability and insecurity, as well as weak infrastructure, chronic food shortages and several years of devastating floods.
South Sudanese refugee returnees wait at Palouch airport in Upper Nile State, for a cargo plane to Wau city in the country’s north west. ©UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
Returnees are mainly arriving via the Joda border crossing in Upper Nile State before being transported to a transit centre in nearby Renk. The centre was designed to accommodate 3,000 people, but four times that number are now living in and around it in increasingly difficult circumstances. They lack sufficient shelter, water and sanitation facilities, or health services.
Increasing numbers of children are arriving from Sudan with measles and malnutrition. Meanwhile, The World Food Programme has warned that a hunger emergency is looming on the border as funding for food assistance fails to keep pace with the steady stream of new arrivals.
Intentions of onward movements - Source: IOM and UNHCR joint border monitoring tool
Heavy rain and flooding deepen humanitarian crisis
South Sudan and several other countries in the region have always experienced seasonal rains and flooding but climate change has made such episodes more extreme and prolonged.
The rainy season has brought further misery to displaced people living in makeshift shelters with little to protect them from the elements.
Caption: Newly arrived refugees from Sudan's Darfur region shelter from the rain in Adre, Chad.
In Renk, efforts to help people leave the congested transit centre and reach their home areas or more permanent camps have been complicated by the rains which have cut off road travel to many parts of South Sudan. Authorities and aid agencies must rely instead on boats or barges to transport people down the Nile. So far, the numbers being transported onwards have been outpaced by the number arriving across the border.
In South Sudan and elsewhere in the region, heavy rain and flooding have worsened conditions in displacement sites and camps and contributed to outbreaks of malaria, cholera and other water-borne diseases.
Getting aid to the remote areas where refugees are arriving has also been made much more difficult by the rainy season. In South Sudan, for example, supplies and aid workers can now only arrive via costly airlifts and planes cannot land during heavy rain.
What UNHCR is doing
Inside Sudan, the ongoing clashes in Khartoum, Kordofan, and Darfur regions have hindered the ability of UNHCR and other agencies to deliver much-needed assistance. In areas where the security situation permits, such as Gedaref, Kassala, White Nile, and Blue Nile states, UNHCR has strengthened its operations to continue providing protection and assistance to refugees and to respond to new displacement patterns. Additionally, UNHCR has established new offices in Port Sudan, Wad Madani, and Wadi Halfa, where our teams and partners are assisting refugees, internally displaced and other affected Sudanese people. We provide relief items, emergency shelters, cash assistance, and critical services, including education programmes, legal aid for individuals lacking civil documentation, and psychosocial support.
In neighbouring countries, UNHCR is coordinating the response to the influx of refugees and returnees together with governments, other UN agencies and partners. Our teams have been working around the clock to support new arrivals, set up transit centres where people can rest and receive essential protection services and emergency aid, establish and expand camps where they can access longer-term support, and facilitate onward transfers away from overcrowded border areas.
Yet with millions who have fled to neighbouring countries or other parts of Sudan in urgent need of help, waning international attention and a chronic lack of funding is hampering the capacity of UNHCR and other organizations to save lives.
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