Number of refugees who have fled Sudan war passes four million, UN agency says

UNHCR says milestone follows a series of attacks in Darfur, including camps for displaced

Displaced Sudanese flee on animal-drawn carts following attacks in mid-April, blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, on the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. Reuters

More than four million people have fled Sudan since the start of the conflict in April 2023, the UN said on Tuesday, underlining the heavy toll the war has exacted on the impoverished nation of 50 million.

The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said the figure, recorded on Monday, was a “devastating milestone” and warned the continuing outflow of people would threaten regional and global stability.

Besides the four million who left the country, the war has internally displaced about 10 million, giving the Afro-Arab nation the unenviable label of being home to the world's worst displacement crisis.

Moreover, the war has left about 26 million people facing acute hunger, with pockets of famine surfacing in several parts of the country, mostly in the west.

Apart from displacement, the war pitting the national army against the paramilitary Rapid Support forces has killed tens of thousands and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. Both sides of the war are accused by the UN and other groups of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The latest displacement figure was released at a time when the prospects for a negotiated settlement have become more remote. Late on Monday, RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo ruled out any negotiations with the army, saying he would not talk with “murderers” and “criminals”.

Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army chief and Sudan's de facto leader, has repeatedly stated his intention to fight on until the RSF is vanquished.

The stalemate leaves the country effectively divided between the two sides, with the army controlling the capital Khartoum as well as central, northern and eastern Sudan. The RSF controls all of the western Darfur region save for the army-held city of El Fasher and parts of Kordofan and the southern region.

“Four million people now have fled Sudan into neighbouring countries since the start of the war, now in its third year,” UNHCR spokeswoman Eujin Byun said at a press briefing in Geneva.

“It's a devastating milestone in what is the world's most damaging displacement crisis,. If the conflict continues, thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake.”

UNHCR figures showed that 4,003,385 people had fled Sudan as refugees, asylum seekers, and returnees as of Monday. Of those, 1.5 million have fled to Egypt; more than 1.1 million to South Sudan, including nearly 800,000 returnees who had been refugees themselves in Sudan; and more than 850,000 to Chad.

The UNHCR described a deepening humanitarian emergency in eastern Chad, where the number of Sudanese refugees has more than tripled since the war broke out. Chad was already hosting more than 400,000 Sudanese refugees before the conflict began, and the figure has now passed 1.2 million.

This is placing “unsustainable pressure on Chad's ability to respond”, said Dossou Patrice Ahouansou, UNHCR's principal situation co-ordinator in Chad, speaking from Amdjarass in the country's east.

He said there had been an influx across the border since late April following attacks in Sudan's North Darfur region, including assaults on displacement camps.

In about a month, 68,556 refugees have arrived in Chad's Wadi Fira and Ennedi Est provinces, with an average of 1,400 people crossing the border daily in recent days, he said.

“These civilians are fleeing in terror, many under fire, navigating armed checkpoints, extortion, and tight restrictions imposed by armed groups,” Mr Ahouansou said.

He said the emergency response was “dangerously underfunded”, with people living in “dire” shelter conditions, and tens of thousands exposed to extreme weather, insecurity and water shortages.

The UNHCR said there was an urgent need for the international community “to acknowledge, and act to eradicate, the grave human rights abuses being endured in Sudan”.

“Without a significant increase in funding, life-saving assistance cannot be delivered at the scale and speed required,” Mr Ahouansou said.

With reporting by AFP