More than four million refugees have fled Sudan since the outbreak of its civil war in 2023, according to officials from the United Nations refugee agency.
The UNHCR, in a statement on Tuesday, warned that many of those displaced are now grappling with severe shortages of adequate shelter, largely due to critical funding gaps. The crisis, they noted, continues to push families into increasingly desperate conditions.
“Now in its third year, the 4 million people is a devastating milestone in what is the world’s most damaging displacement crisis at the moment,” U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun told a Geneva press briefing.
“If the conflict continues in Sudan, thousands more people, we expect thousands more people will continue to flee, putting regional and global stability at stake,” she said.
Sudan, which plunged into conflict in April 2023, shares borders with seven countries: Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya.
According to UNHCR official Dossou Patrice Ahouansou, more than 800,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to Chad, where living conditions remain extremely poor. He noted that only 14% of funding appeals have been met, leaving thousands without proper shelter and essential support.
“This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity. This is a crisis of … protection based on the violence that refugees are reporting,” he said.
Many of those fleeing Sudan have shared harrowing accounts of the terror and violence they endured, UNHCR’s Dossou Patrice Ahouansou said.
He recalled meeting a seven-year-old girl in Chad who was injured during an attack on her home in Sudan’s Zamzam displacement camp. Her father and two brothers were killed in the assault, and she had to have her leg amputated during the escape. Her mother, he added, had been killed in an earlier attack.
Other refugees told of armed groups stealing their horses and donkeys, forcing adults to pull carts themselves, often carrying their own family members, as they fled for safety.
