GENEVA (AP) — The number of internally displaced people in Sudan has reached more than 10 million, the U.N. migration agency told The Associated Press on Monday.
The International Organization for Migration said a total of 2.83 million people were displaced from their homes before the current war began, as a result of multiple local conflicts that have occurred in recent years.
More than 2 million other people have been displaced abroad, mainly to neighboring Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, IOM spokesman Mohammedali Abunajela told the AP.
The conflict in Sudan began last April, when rising tensions between military leaders and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces culminated in open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
“Imagine a city the size of London that is displaced. It is, but it is happening under the constant threat of crossfire, with famine, disease and brutal ethnic and gender-based violence,” IOM Director-General Amy Pope said in a statement.
The UN food agency warned warring sides last month that there is a serious risk of widespread famine and deaths in the western region of Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they do not allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
The Pope called for a united response from the international community to prevent “an impending famine” in Sudan, where humanitarian needs are “great, acute and immediate.” Delivered.
The war has devastated Sudan, killing more than 14,000 people and injuring thousands more, while pushing the population to the brink of famine.
Together, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons means that more than a quarter of Sudan’s population of 47 million people has been driven from their homes.
