The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned that with global attention now shifted to the conflict in Gaza, the number of people fleeing their homes in Sudan has started to rise again as RSF forces advance towards Nyala, the country's second city in the heart of Darfur.
The war between troops loyal to Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has left more than 9,000 dead since April, according to a UN report.
"Six months and six million people forced to move; that's an average of one million per month; it's horrible suffering," said Mamadou Dian Balde, the top regional official for the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR).
Of the nearly six million who have fled, 1.2 million have left the country, "very proud people who find themselves begging" and whose lives have been "totally disrupted," the UN official said.
Dramatic scenes
Another UN official in the region, Dominique Hyde, wrote on social media on Thursday that she had witnessed "dramatic scenes’’ at Sudan’s borders.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meanwhile said he was "deeply troubled" at information about an "imminent large-scale attack" by Sudan's paramilitary forces in El-Facher, the capital of North Darfur.
The UN agency warns that more and more people from Darfur are being pushed south, first to Chad in recent weeks and now to South Sudan.
Mamadou Dian Balde said the priority was a cessation of hostilities, noting that ongoing negotiations in Saudi Arabia's Jeddah need to "succeed in stopping the fighting."
Urgent talks
Talks between the warring parties resumed at the end of October. Previous attempts at mediation only resulted in brief truces, which were systematically violated.
In the meantime, "we must alleviate the suffering (of refugees) by providing resources to these people whose numbers are only increasing," Balde said.
The UN's humanitarian response plan in August called for around $1 billion in funding, anticipating 1.8 million refugees by the end of 2023.
That plan has only received 38 percent of the funding required, while "the needs are growing," said the UN official, noting that most refugees were going to the poorest parts of South Sudan and southern Chad, where local communities cannot absorb them.
Refugee camps
The UN says the large influx of refugees means it will need to build new camps.
"It's the last thing we want to do," said the UN official, but "we need to create new camps because the populations are at the border" and in "extremely miserable conditions."
He also called for helping the local communities.
"We want development. We have to invest in these places because if we only give support to refugees, it will create tensions, and tensions can translate into violence."
