The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is expanding its operations in Sudan to aid people seeking refuge in neighboring countries.
The UNHCR in a statement released on Tuesday indicated that the ongoing fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces was expected to prompt a large number of safety seekers to cross the borders for refuge in neighboring countries and lead to internal wide-scale displacement of Sudanese.
UNHCR, already operating beyond the available resources in Sudan, is facing growing difficulties caused by the fighting because the country already hosts more than one million refugees and 3.7 million relocated people.
The situation in the neighboring countries with respect of needs for refugees and the relocated is largely identical.
Sudanese fled to Chad as a result of the fighting, refugees from South Sudan returned to the homeland and others settled in Egypt, the UNHCR statement said.
UNHCR’s teams have been stationed along the eastern borders to aid people crossing the frontier areas, it said, indicating that at least 20,000 people had already crossed to Chad.
There are 800,000 people from South Sudan living in Sudan and some 200,000 of them reside in Khartoum, many facing life-threatening hazards.
Source: Kuwait News Agency