Conflict in Sudan: “Hunger threatens South Sudanese returning to the country”

Since its outbreak on April 15, the war in Sudan between the army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo has left nearly 7,500 dead, according to a conservative estimate. from the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

It also caused the displacement of more than five million people, including 2.8 million who fled the capital Khartoum, the scene of incessant airstrikes, artillery fire and street fighting.

The majority of people who have fled the fighting and crossed the border into South Sudan are South Sudanese who “are returning to a country already facing unprecedented humanitarian needs”, underlines the PAM in a press release.

“We see families leaving one disaster for another, fleeing danger Sudan to find themselves faced with despair Sudan from South “says Mary-Ellen McGroarty, WFP director in South Sudan.

But the PAM does not have the “resources needed to provide life-saving assistance to those who need it most”, she warned.

The South Sudanese “cross the border with nothing but the clothes on their back”, and some are also victims of theft and violence during their journey, says the WFP, which also fears epidemics during the rainy season.

After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into a civil war that left nearly 400,000 people dead and millions displaced between 2013 and 2018.

A peace agreement signed in 2018 provided for the principle of power sharing between rivals Salva Kiir and Riek Machar within a national unity government. But tensions and violence continue to undermine the youngest country on the planet, rich in oil but where the vast majority of the population lives below the poverty line.