Violence in Sudan’s Darfur region worsens humanitarian situation

Nairobi, July 5, (dpa/GNA) – The aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC), is warning of increasing violence in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.

In the past two weeks, some 36,000 people fled the region to neighbouring Chad, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Compounding the situation is the intensification of interethnic conflicts in Sudan, which has raised concerns about the possibility of further waves of refugees,” said Mwiti Mungania, IRC’s emergency country director.

The total number of refugees since the beginning of the renewed conflict in the north-eastern African country in mid-April is 190,000. Displaced people from Darfur reported harrowing acts of violence.

Since mid-April, a long-simmering power struggle between de facto president Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and former vice-president and paramilitary leader Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, has been violently fought out in Sudan.

Besides the capital Khartoum, the Darfur region in the west of the country, which has been torn apart by ethnic conflicts for decades, is particularly badly affected by the fighting.

About 2 million have been internally displaced due to the violence, and some 500,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, including Chad.

Repeated ceasefire agreements have not been observed.
GNA