The UN estimates that more than $3 billion is required for humanitarian relief and refugees in Sudan, where severe conflict has aggravated the humanitarian catastrophe since mid-April.
According to updated projections, the UN needs $2.6 billion for humanitarian relief alone, up from $1.75 billion in December.
According to Ramesh Rajasingham, the UN’s chief of humanitarian affairs, these funding should allow humanitarian relief groups to treat around 18 million of the country’s most vulnerable people.
For refugees who have fled the fighting, the UN is asking for $470.4 million, adding that it expected to see up to 1.1 million people leave Sudan this year.
“Today, 25 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — need humanitarian assistance and protection,” Rajasingham told reporters.
Fighting between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane’s army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, which began on April 15, has left an estimated 1,000 people dead and 1 million displaced and refugees in Sudan.
The fighting has worsened the humanitarian situation in the country, where one in three people were already dependent on humanitarian aid before the war.
Two weeks ago, the head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, estimated that “more than 800,000 people” could flee the deadly fighting in Sudan.
“To date, the crisis, which began a month ago, has caused a mass exodus to neighboring countries of about 220,000 refugees,” UNHCR official Raouf Mazou told reporters.
At the same time, more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan. “Countless people remain trapped in Sudan, innocent victims of the indiscriminate fighting,” he added.
