Doha: The number of people who have fled Sudan since the outbreak of the civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, with countless survivors remaining without adequate shelter due to chronic funding shortfalls, officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned on Tuesday. During a press briefing in Geneva, the Spokesperson for UNHCR, Eujin Byun, stressed that the refugee count crossing the four-million mark as the war enters its third year constitutes a grim milestone in what is now the world’s most catastrophic displacement crisis.
According to Qatar News Agency, Byun noted that if the conflict in Sudan persists, thousands more individuals are expected to flee the country, placing both regional and global stability at serious risk. Addressing the same press conference, Dossou Patrice Ahouansou of UNHCR stated that over 800,000 refugees have crossed into Chad, where shelter conditions continue to deteriorate due to a critical lack of funding, with only 14 percent of required resources received so far.
He underscored that this is an unprecedented crisis, both humanitarian and protection-related, driven by the violence reported by refugees fleeing the conflict. Ahouansou highlighted that many of those fleeing Sudan recounted moments of sheer terror and violence. He shared the harrowing account of a seven-year-old girl he met in Chad, who described how her family was attacked in their shelter at Zamzam displacement camp in Sudan.
The assault killed her father and two brothers and left her severely wounded, she lost her leg while attempting to escape. Her mother, Ahouansou added, had been killed in a previous attack. He added that other refugees recounted chilling stories of armed groups seizing their horses and donkeys, forcing adults to drag carts loaded with their families by themselves during their harrowing escape.
Since the flare-up of this conflict on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan has witnessed an overwhelming mass exodus, with over 12 million people displaced, making the situation the worst displacement crisis in the world as per UN reports.