“People in Sudan are not moving by choice, they are running just to find safety,” said Mohamed Refaat, IOM Chief of Mission in Sudan.
Speaking from Port Sudan to journalists in Geneva, he urged all Member States and “everyone who can provide support” for Sudan’s people, to ensure their protection.
Heavy shelling alert
Latest reports from the wartorn country indicate that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) along with allies in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) shelled residential buildings in Dilling, South Kordofan in the last 48 hours.
The RSF have been at war with the Sudanese army since April 2023 following a breakdown in transition to civilian rule. On 26 October, the paramilitary force overran El Fasher – the regional capital of North Darfur – after a 500-day siege, prompting further mass displacement. Deep concerns persist for those believed to still be trapped inside the city who had to eat peanut shells and animal feed to survive the ordeal.
‘People are scared’
“Those displacements from Kordofan are not happening sporadically, they are happening because people are scared,” IOM’s Mr. Refaat said. He noted that people were now fleeing from Babanusa, Kadugli and El-Obeid.
Highlighting deep concerns for vulnerable individuals on the move, the veteran humanitarian official noted that “only women and children” are arriving in White Nile and Gedaref to the east.
Deep insecurity and violence persist across Sudan, increasing protection risks for civilians and hampering safe humanitarian access.
There are growing concerns over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Kadugli, the capital city of South Kordofan state where six peacekeepers from Bangladesh were killed in drone attacks last Saturday. The UN blue helmets were at a logistics base in the city, deployed with the UN force in Abyei, the disputed region on the border with South Sudan.
Hundreds of thousands at risk
“In the town of Kadugli, we estimate that there are around 90,000 to 100,000 people in this area who will be displaced if something happened if the fighting continued, if they get access to leaving the city,” Mr. Refaat said. He added that El-Obeid – the capital of North Kordofan – appeared to be just “one or two steps from being the next city under attack…we estimate more than half a million are already going to be impacted.”
Returning to the crisis in El Fasher, the IOM official noted that the UN agency’s displacement tracking matrix had recorded more than 109,000 people who had managed to flee the city and its surrounding villages since it fell in late October to the RSF.
“Many of them are still stuck in the neighbouring villages not able to move further because of logistics [and] security issues” he said, fuelling concerns for those trying to survive when the essentials for survival have been “completely obliterated”, UN aid teams warned one week ago.
Asked about the impact of severe funding cuts for aid work in the UN and beyond, the IOM chief of mission explained that the agency had lost $83 million worth of resources this year alone. This has forced aid teams to reduce its footprint “massively”, Mr. Refaat explained.
“Because of those cuts, we have to choose which lives we can save and which support we have to stop. So, we would go crossing places where we know that people are absolutely in dire need, but we will leave them and not be able to help them because we have to prioritize those who are absolutely dying.”
