More than 1.3 million people returned to homes in Sudan, UN says

Another 320,000 people who fled fighting crossed back into Sudan

Sudanese families displaced by conflict wait to board a train as they return home voluntarily from Egypt. Reuters

At least 1.3 million internally displaced people who fled the fighting in Sudan have gone back home, the UN said, as it called for more international aid to help the displaced rebuild their lives.

Another 320,000 refugees who had left the country, crossed back to Sudan this year, mostly from Egypt and South Sudan, the UN said on Friday.

The fighting had subsided in the "pockets of relative safety" that people are beginning to return to, but the situation remains highly precarious, the organisation added.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The fighting has killed tens of thousands.

The RSF lost control of the capital, Khartoum, in March and the regular army now controls Sudan's centre, north and east.

In a joint statement, the UN's IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support for the recovery as people begin to return, with humanitarian operations "massively underfunded".

Sudan has 10 million internally displaced people, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.

That is "one in three people", said Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR's regional refugee co-ordinator for the Sudan crisis, who has just returned from Khartoum and Wadi Halfa at the border with Egypt.

Mr Balde said people returning is a "desperate call for the end of war" so they can rebuild their lives.

“Not only do they mark a hopeful but fragile shift, they also indicate already stretched host countries under increasing strain," he told a press briefing in Geneva.

As hope returns, he said, so does the role of the international community to help people coming back.

More than four million have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", said the IOM's regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan.

"War has unleashed hell for millions or ordinary people who dream of raising their families and living their lives in peace in harmony with their neighbours," he said. "Sudan is a living nightmare."

Mr Belbeisi also said 71 per cent of returns had been to Al Jazira state, with eight per cent to Khartoum. Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state. Al Jazira and Sennar are south-east of the capital.

"We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services," said Mr Belbeisi.

With the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the main battleground in recent weeks.

He said the "vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity" and implored the warring factions to put down their guns.

"The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people," Mr Belbeisi said.

"Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop."

Luca Renda, UNDP's resident representative in Sudan, warned of further cholera outbreaks in Khartoum if broken services were not restored.

"What we need is for the international community to support us," he said.

Mr Renda said about 1,700 wells need rebuilding, while at least six Khartoum hospitals and more than 35 schools need urgent repairs.

He also sounded the alarm over the "massive" amount of unexploded ordnance littering the city and the need for decontamination.

He said anti-personnel mines had also been found in at least five locations in Khartoum.

"It will take years to fully decontaminate the city," he said, speaking from Port Sudan.

With AFP