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- United Nations Refugee Council says Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic now house more than 560 00 Sudanese refugees.
- About two million people have been internally displaced since 15 April, when the fighting started between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
- A donor conference for Sudan in Geneva raised R27.8 billion last month, which is half of what's needed at the moment.
Egypt has received the largest number of the more than half a million refugees who have fled Sudan - followed by Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic (CAR) - the United Nations Refugee Council (UNHRC) has said.
About two million people, the UNHRC said, had been internally displaced since 15 April, when the fighting started between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, Raouf Mazou, after a visit to the war-torn country, said in a statement: "What is also quite striking, and which needs to be underlined, is how welcoming the host populations are.
"With no end in sight for the fighting, the UN agency now expected that its previous estimate of one million refugees would be surpassed, said Mazou.
Sharing the border with West Darfur, Chad has recorded 170 000 people crossing into the country.
The UNHCR said many of them, including women and children, arrive in Chad needing treatment for their injuries.
More than 120 000 people have reached South Sudan, which faces infrastructure and security challenges.
The situation makes it impossible to absorb all arrivals from Sudan.
Mazou hinted that some might need to be airlifted to safer regions in South Sudan. Those making the trek to South Sudan have historical links to the country.
"They are part of the 800 000 South Sudanese refugees who were in Sudan, but they are now going back," he said.
Egypt has had over 200 000 arrivals.
The rainy season will make it harder to move the rising numbers of refugees.
"The priority of the emergency response remains to support new arrivals in reaching their areas of origin or preferred destinations while refugees are being moved to existing or newly developed camps – a movement that is now becoming ever more challenging due to the onset of the rainy season," Mazou said.
Funding remains the biggest challenge for humanitarian assistance.
"To date, both the Humanitarian Response Plan and the Refugee Response Plan are less than 20% funded," he said.
On 19 June, there was a donor conference for Sudan in Geneva that raised R27.8 billion ($1.52 billion), which is half of what's needed at the moment.
Meanwhile, the de facto head of state and leader of SAF, General Abdulfettah al-Burhan, declared a "unilateral" ceasefire on the first day of the Eid, due to Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice, is the most celebrated Islamic holiday. It runs from the evening of 27 June to 1 July.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
