“As violence continues in Sudan for the fourth week, nearly 200,000 refugees and returnees have been forced to flee the country, with more people crossing the border to seek safety,” UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarado told reporters in Geneva.
The United Nations Migration Agency said earlier this week that more than 700,000 people have been displaced inside Sudan following the outbreak of fighting on April 15, which killed more than 750 people and injured 5,000 others.
Speaking of those fleeing Sudan, Sarado warned that “the humanitarian response is difficult and costly,” noting that “refugees and returnees are arriving in remote border areas where services and infrastructure are scarce or non-existent, and the host population is suffering under the weight of climate change and food scarcity.”
“The upcoming rainy season will make logistics more difficult when many roads will become impassable,” she said.
For neighboring Chad, she said that some 30,000 refugees had arrived in recent days, bringing the total number of those who arrived from Sudan in recent weeks to 60,000.
“Nearly 90 percent of the refugees are children and women, many of whom are pregnant,” she added.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 20 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years suffer from acute malnutrition.
On the other hand, Sarado said that the Commission welcomes the signing by the warring military parties in Sudan on Thursday evening of a declaration pledging to respect the rules that allow the provision of humanitarian aid.
Both sides pledged in talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah late Thursday to protect civilians, but nothing seemed to change immediately.
“We hope that (the agreement) will allow the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid and the restoration of basic services such as health care, water and electricity,” she said.
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