A spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday that nearly 200,000 people have fled Sudan to neighboring countries since fighting broke out last month, including many malnourished children who arrived in Chad in the past few days.
Meanwhile, Pierre Honorat, Country Director and Representative of the World Food Program in Chad, called on the international community to provide urgent funding to provide emergency food assistance to more than two million people in Chad, including new Sudanese refugees.
In a related context, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Olga Sarado, said – in a press statement – that about 60,000 people have arrived in Chad across the desert, including 30,000 in the past few days.
She explained that nearly 90% of those who have recently arrived are women and children, and that a fifth of young children suffer from malnutrition.
On the other hand, more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan as a result of the fighting, according to the United Nations.
Sarado added, “The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees calls for … urgent financial support to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
She pointed to the slowdown in financial support compared to other emergencies, “despite the urgency and seriousness of the crisis,” and said that a new appeal for financial support is expected to be launched, after the Commission called last week to collect $445 million.
In the same statement, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that the fire consumed a factory in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that was producing food for malnourished children.
Spokesman James Elder said the incident was “the darkest and clearest yet of how this conflict threatens children’s lives in multiple ways”. He indicated that he did not know if the factory had been deliberately set on fire.
An all-out war may affect other countries
In addition, international warnings of the dangerous deterioration of the security situation continue, and it said that the fighting will expand into an all-out war that may affect other countries in the region as well, in addition to the growing number of refugees and people fleeing the fighting to neighboring countries, in addition to the high food and medical needs in the country.
Pierre Honorat, Country Director and Representative of the World Food Program in Chad, called on the international community to provide and provide urgent funding to provide emergency food assistance to more than two million people in Chad, including new Sudanese refugees. Pierre stressed that the United Nations World Food Program urgently needs to $162.4 million to help the Government of Chad assist 2.3 million people in urgent need of food aid
Many UN agencies and other relief agencies have suspended aid to Sudan, especially in the capital, Khartoum, pending guarantees for the safety of supplies and staff.
