Sudanese Nationals Flee Fighting

Scores of refugees are arriving into the country at Nadapal on the Kenyan border with South Sudan following reports of renewed fighting in the neighbouring country.

Those arriving on foot and by vehicles are being registered at Nadapal.

Lokichoggio Peace Organization Coordinator Emmanuel Eregai has said the influx of the refugees has made things worse for the area already grappling with cattle rustling.

Eregai said most of the refugees are women and children.

Men and boys are said to have remained to fight on opposing sides allied to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.

The refugees say they were forced to flee Malakal in South Sudan owing to heavy fighting. They are now headed to Kakuma refugee camp.

Police say more than 400 new refugees have arrived at the border point.

Over half a million Sudanese flee

Heavy fighting in South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Nile states over the last two months has displaced more than 100,000 people and blocked humanitarian aid deliveries for some 650,000 people as aid organizations have been forced to withdraw.

“Refugees cite the upsurge in fighting, but also growing food insecurity as the main reasons for fleeing their homes,” Adrian Edwards, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told reporters in Geneva.

Since the beginning of the year, some 60,000 South Sudanese have fled the country, mostly to Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda bringing the total number of people who fled the country since December 2013 to 555,000.

Some 1.5 million are internally displaced in the country and more than 3.8 million – a third of the country’s population of 11 million – do not have sufficient food.

As fighting continues, UNHCR offices in Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda have all reported sharp increases in arrivals during May.