Accra: Sudan's civil war has triggered the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with around 11.6 million refugees and internally displaced people, according to the United Nations. About 4.5 million people have fled Sudan to neighbouring countries, but a lack of prospects and uncertainty over an end to the three-year conflict are pushing many to move on, Mamadou Dian Bald©, regional director of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Nairobi, said.
According to Ghana News Agency, Bald© stated, 'People are arriving in Greece. They are arriving into Italy. They are arriving into Spain.' So far, nearly 14,000 Sudanese refugees have reached Europe via the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, while more than half a million are currently in Libya, he added. 'We need to ramp up, we need to increase the support to refugees,' he said, including the countries hosting them.
Bald© warned that underestimating the conflict's impact on regional stability is a 'big, big, big mistake.' He spoke ahead of the third International Sudan Conference on Wednesday in Berlin, which seeks to put the war back on the international agenda. He emphasized that major funding gaps in aid programmes for Sudanese refugees must be addressed. Countries seeking to limit arrivals should invest more in host nations and refugee accommodation, he said.
He highlighted the urgent need for increased humanitarian assistance due to the scale of suffering among refugees inside and outside Sudan, as well as widespread violence, particularly against women and girls. 'I have never witnessed something like this for my 27 years working in this field,' Bald© said.