The UN warns that more than 800,000 people could flee Sudan due to the fighting between the Army and the RSF

May 2. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The United Nations has warned that more than 800,000 people could flee Sudan because of the fighting that broke out in mid-April between the Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) due to disagreements over the integration of the latter into the Armed Forces as one of the steps towards a democratic transition process.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has indicated that the organization, “together with governments and partners”, is preparing “in view of the possibility that more than 800,000 people may flee the fighting in Sudan to the countries neighbors”.

“We hope it does not come to that, but if the violence does not stop, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan looking for a safe place,” Grandi said in a brief message posted on his official Twitter account. . The fighting has caused tens of thousands of people to flee to Egypt, Chad, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR).

The hostilities broke out on April 15 in the context of an increase in tensions around the integration of the RSF –led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’, who is also vice president of the Sovereign Transition Council– in the within the Armed Forces, a key part of an agreement signed in December to form a new civilian government and reactivate the transition.

The talks process began with international mediation after the head of the Army and president of the Sovereign Transition Council, Abdelfatá al Burhan, led a coup in October 2021 that overthrew the then prime minister of unity, Abdalá Hamdok, appointed to the charge as a result of contacts between civilians and the military after the April 2019 riot, which ended 30 years of the regime of Omar Hasan al Bashir.