May 14. (EUROPE PRSS) –
The clashes between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that broke out on April 15 have already left at least 676 dead, more than 5,576 injured and almost a million internally displaced or refugees to other countries, according to the latest estimate from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), presented this Sunday.
To these figures must be added another 25 dead and 90 injured in episodes of intercommunal violence in Western Kordofan, and another 29 dead and 40 injured in White Nile.
More than 936,000 people have been recently displaced by the conflict since April 15, including some 736,200 people internally displaced since the conflict began and some 200,000 people who have crossed into neighboring countries, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
Nearly half are 450,000 children who have been forced to flee their homes, including some 368,000 internally displaced persons and 82,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Women and children, recalls OCHA, represent more than 75% of secondary displaced refugees. Before the conflict, there were 3.7 million internally displaced persons and 1.1 million refugees and asylum seekers in Sudan.
Although the conflict is now in the process of being resolved, warns the UN, the persistence of tension and sporadic fighting threaten the planting season, which will begin at the end of May. The loss of the season will mean a drastic increase in the hungry population in a country where a third of the population already needed food aid before the outbreak of the conflict.
