The number of internally displaced people in Sudan has reached more than 10 million, the UN migration agency told The Associated Press on Monday.
The International Organization for Migration said the tally includes 2.83 million driven from their homes before the current war began by multiple local conflicts that have been happening in recent years.
More than 2 million other people have been driven abroad, mostly to neighboring Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, IOM spokesman Mohammedali Abunajela told the AP.
Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
“Imagine a city the size of London being displaced. That’s what it’s like, but it’s happening with the constant threat of crossfire, with famine, disease and brutal ethnic and gender-based violence,” said IOM Director-General Amy Pope in a statement.
The UN food agency warned the warring parties last month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in the western region of Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.
Pope called for a unified response from the international community to avoid “a looming famine” in Sudan, where humanitarian needs are “massive, acute and immediate.” She said less than one-fifth of the funds IOM has sought for the response have been delivered.
The war has wrecked Sudan, killing more than 14,000 people and wounding thousands others, while pushing its population to the brink of famine.
Together, the number of refugees and internally displaced means that more than a quarter of Sudan’s population of 47 million have been driven from their homes.
