The United Nations refugee agency says
over 31,000 South Sudanese, fleeing famine and conflict, have crossed the
border into Sudan so far this year.
A statement from the office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Khartoum said on Monday that more than 80
percent of the latest arrivals were women and children.
"Initial expectations were that 60,000 refugees may
arrive through 2017, but in the first two months alone, over 31,000 refugees
arrived," the statement read.
Sources say many of the refugees are exhausted, malnourished and
ill after having walked for days.
Sudan is hosting about 328,339 refugees, who fled civil war in
South Sudan that erupted in late 2013.
Fighting between government forces of President Salva Kiir and rebels led by the former
vice president, Riek Machar, has
caused a mass exodus in the troubled region. The fighting has uprooted more
than three million people over the past years.
The Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda are also hosting thousands of refugees
from South Sudan.
The UN says the continuing migration presented
"heightened risks of prolonged (food) underproduction into 2018"
across South Sudan.
The UN declared famine last week in parts of South Sudan's Unity
State. The international body says about 5.5 million people are expected to
have no reliable source of food by July.
The
UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has also recently warned that at least 270,000
children in South Sudan are suffering from malnutrition.
The country gained independence in July 2011, but
descended into war in December 2013, after President Kiir accused Machar of
plotting a coup to usurp power.
Numerous international attempts to reach a truce between the
warring sides have failed.
-PressTV
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