Gueipeur Denis Sassou/AFP/Getty Images/File
Sudanese refugees cross into Chad near Koufroun, Echbara, on May 1, 2023.
CNN
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More than 3.1 million people have been forced to flee their homes amid an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in war-torn Sudan.
Human rights groups have warned of widespread ethnic violence, attacks on civilians and widespread sexual violence against women and girls as warring factions – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – continues to fight for control of the northeast. African country.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Wednesday that more than 2.4 million are internally displaced in Sudan while 737,801 people crossed the border into neighboring countries.
The number of civilians continues to increase, according to the latest report from the UN’s Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which states that 414,625 individuals comprising 483,672 households, have been displaced, increasing to 183,102 individuals compared to last week.
The number of refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, mainly Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, has also increased with an estimated 750,000 civilians leaving Sudan.
The World Food Program (WFP) said 20,000 refugees crossed into Chad last week, adding that many of them were “seriously injured” and reported being “deliberately” targeted by an “increasingly ethnic dimension of violence.”
“We see that they are suffering, many missing family members, and we don’t even dare to ask them, ‘Where are the men?’ The response from the mothers was usually that they were killed. So, you see a lot of women, a lot of children,” said WFP Chad Country Director Pierre Honnorat, describing the desperate scenes from the Zabout refugee camp in Goz Beida in a call to the journalist.
“Many are seriously injured and have terrible stories of the violence they have experienced” said Honorat, appealing for funding, adding that the “situation is very critical.”
In a statement, the WFP said its “urgent priorities include treating the injured and helping vulnerable malnourished children crossing from Darfur into Chad.”
According to WFP, one in 10 displaced children from Sudan is malnourished.
UN officials condemned increasing reports of gender-based violence in Sudan earlier this month, with Save the Children warning of “alarming numbers of children and adolescent girls being sexually assaulted and raped of armed warriors.”
Martin Griffiths, the head of UN relief operations said it was “unthinkable” that women and children in Sudan were “increasingly traumatized in this way.” He called Sudan “a humanitarian crisis.”
The situation in Darfur, western Sudan, is also said to be “critical” with the UN receiving “continuous reports of heavy fighting and attacks on civilians”.
In addition to the clashes between the RSF and the SAF, the OCHA report also noted an increase in RSF and militia presence reports emerging from other states in Darfur, as well as fighting in North and South Kordofan, in a more complex fighting landscape across Sudan.
