$445 million needed to care for those fleeing Sudan

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) foresees the departure of some 860,000 refugees and returnees from Sudan. The agency estimates that it will require 445 million dollars to support displaced people until the month of October.

The updated figures are collected in a preliminary document that is part of the Inter-Agency Regional Plan for Response to Refugees in Sudan presented this Thursday to the donor community. The aid will initially cover relief efforts in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.

The plan was developed in collaboration with 134 Agency partners, including UN agencies, national and international NGOs and civil society groups.

“The humanitarian situation in and around Sudan is tragic.: there are shortages of food, water and fuel, limited access to transport, communications and electricity, and the prices of basic items have skyrocketed,” said the agency’s deputy high commissioner for operations.

Raouf Mazou explained that the Agency and its partners deployed emergency teams on the ground and provide technical support to the Sudanese authorities, including protection and reception tasks. “This is just the beginning. More help is urgently needed,” he requested.

Lack of adequate funding

The figure of 860,000 refugees and returnees is a provisional estimate for financial and operational planning purposes.

The majority of these people, some 580,000, would be Sudanese, another 235,000 would be refugees welcomed by Sudan, who return to their country in adverse conditions, and another 45,000 would be of other nationalities. Egypt and South Sudan are expected to be the countries that receive the largest number of arrivals.

The ongoing fighting has caused the displacement of more than 330,000 people inside Sudan, and more than 100,000 refugees and returnees have left the country. UNHCR today launched a new portal that will update daily new figures for refugee arrivals and returnees to neighboring countries.

danger zones

The organization recalled that the continuous fighting, looting, the increase in prices and the lack of transportation make it difficult to leave dangerous areas. Access to health care has also been severely affected.

The plan will support host countries In order to guarantee access to asylum for people in need of international protection, it will help them provide humanitarian assistance, and it will identify and provide specialized services to the most vulnerable people. The arrival of the rainy season will make it even more difficult to access and deliver aid to remote locations.

Most operations in countries receiving those fleeing Sudan, and within the country, suffer from ongoing funding shortages and have so far only received about 15% of funding needs for 2023.

More than 1000 daily arrivals from Sudan to Ethiopia

For her part, the International Organization for Migration (OIM) estimates that since the start of the clashes on April 15, More than 12,000 have already arrived in Metema, the border city between Sudan and Ethiopiamany of them exhausted after the long and dangerous journey to safety.

The Organization’s Displacement Tracking Matrix currently records more than a thousand daily arrivals, among Sudanese citizens, returned Ethiopians and third-country nationals from Turkey, Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya and 50 other nationalities.

The Organization is providing humanitarian assistance to people arriving in Ethiopia. The support includes transportation from the border to Gondar and Addis Ababa, as well as accommodation at the UN agency’s Transit Centers.

Many of those fleeing Sudan enter Ethiopia without resources or belongings. Without the help of the Organization, they risk being stranded in the small and remote border town.

The people who received help include almost 200 Kenyans, some of them students, more than 200 Ugandans and more than 800 Somalis.

Nuru*, a Kenyan student studying a Master’s in Law in Sudan combining it with part-time humanitarian work, describes how he was trapped when the war broke out and was unable to recover his documents and belongings before fleeing.

“I found out that the apartment next to mine was bombed and was completely damaged,” he says.

“That’s when I decided to leave without my documents. The embassy officials were able to issue me a temporary ID to travel,” he added.

*Fictitious name