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More than 800,000 people could flee Sudan as a result of the clashes there between rival military factions, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.
“In consultation with all concerned governments and partners we've arrived at a planning figure of 815,000 people that may flee into the seven neighbouring countries,” Raouf Mazou, Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, said at a UN member state briefing in Geneva.
The estimate includes about 580,000 Sudanese, while the others are existing refugees living temporarily in the country, he said
Mr Mazou said about 73,000 people had already fled to Sudan's seven neighbours — South Sudan, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya — since fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began on April 15
The UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan warned that the humanitarian crisis was turning into a “full blown catastrophe” and that the risk of spillover into neighbouring countries was worrying.
“It has been more than two weeks of devastating fighting in Sudan, a conflict that is turning Sudan's humanitarian crisis into a full blown catastrophe,” Abdou Dieng said via video link.
The briefings follow increasingly grim warnings from UN agencies about the impact of the conflict on the impoverished country of 45 million.
The heaviest fighting, including artillery fire and aerial bombardment, has been reported in the capital Khartoum and the western region of Darfur. Both sides have agreed to and ignored a series of ceasefires, despite calls for a lull to allow civilians to seek safety and receive humanitarian assistance.
The UN's senior official in the country said on Monday that the warring sides had agreed to send representatives for negotiations, possibly in Saudi Arabia, but the logistics were still being worked out.
The talks would focus on establishing a “stable and reliable” ceasefire monitored by “national and international observers”, Mr Perthes told AP.
So far, only the military has announced it is prepared to join negotiations, with no public word from its opponent, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
On Sunday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he would send an envoy to Sudan given the “unprecedented” situation the country is going through.
Mr Guterres' decision comes after successive 72-hour ceasefires were breached by the RSF and Sudan's army.
The death toll continued to rise, with reports emerging of hospitals and blood banks being looted, and ambulances being prevented from reaching their destinations.
The fighting has pushed Sudan's already “extremely fragile” healthcare system to the verge of disaster, a World Health Organisation official said on Monday.
With hospitals bombed, medicines running low and many doctors fleeing the country, “it is a disaster in every sense of the word”, Ahmed Al Mandhari, WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, told AFP.
“The scale and speed of what is unfolding is unprecedented in Sudan … we are extremely concerned,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
UN emergency relief co-ordinator Martin Griffiths, who will serve as the envoy, said Sudan's humanitarian situation was reaching a breaking point.
Mr Griffiths was the UN envoy to Yemen until 2021.
“I am on my way to the region to explore how we can bring immediate relief to the millions of people whose lives have turned upside down overnight,” he said on Sunday.
However, rampant looting of humanitarian offices and warehouses has depleted most of the UN's supplies, he said.
“We are exploring urgent ways to bring in and distribute additional supplies,” Mr Griffiths said.
The “obvious solution” would be to stop the fighting, he said.
On Monday, the World Food Programme said it would lift the suspension of operations in Sudan with immediate effect.
The WFP paused operations after the death of three team members on the first day of fighting.
“WFP is rapidly resuming our programmes to provide the life-saving assistance that many so desperately need right now,” executive director Cindy McCain wrote on Twitter.
More than 500 people have been killed and tens of thousands forced to leave their homes for safer locations within the country or abroad.
The UN says the fighting had left 75,000 people displaced in Sudan while 20,000 had fled to neighbouring Chad, 4,000 to South Sudan and 3,500 to Ethiopia.
About 6,000 people, most of them women, have sought refuge in the neighbouring Central African Republic over the past two weeks, the UN refugee agency told AFP.
“The number is made up of 70 per cent women, 15 per cent girls, 10 per cent men and 400 repatriated,” said the UNHCR in a tweet on Saturday.
Mr Griffiths said families were struggling to gain access to water, food, fuel and other commodities, with others unable to leave some of the worst-hit areas due to the prohibitive cost of transport.
Urgent health care “is severely constrained, raising the risk of preventable death”, he said.
Five containers of intravenous fluids and other emergency supplies docked in Port Sudan are awaiting clearance by authorities, he said.
