Number of refugees fleeing violence in South Sudan reaches a new high of four million
By
Eddie Haywood
19 August 2017
The number of people fleeing barbaric violence in South Sudan, internally displaced or leaving the country, is now over 4 million according to recent figures published by the UN.
As a measure of the severity of the crisis, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that on average 1,800 South Sudanese have arrived in Uganda every day over the past twelve months, desperately fleeing the destruction caused by the civil war in their country.
The new high of 4 million internally and externally displaced since the civil war began in 2013 parallel’s the situation in Syria, where 11 million have been externally and internally displaced by civil war, making the overall refugee crisis worldwide the largest and most dire since World War II.
Uganda, which shares its northern border with South Sudan, is host to the greatest number of refugees, with over one million currently residing in the country. Another one million has fled to countries in the surrounding region, scattering across Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Two million more remain internally displaced in South Sudan, either homeless or residing in squalid and overcrowded conditions in multiple makeshift camps set up by the UN around the country.
During a June visit to the largest refugee camp in the country at Bentiu, Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, spoke of the misery experienced by the displaced, “The international neglect that you see here is matched nowhere else in the world. Wherever you look there are dead ends.”
The UN agency says it has a shortfall in funding, and is operating on around 20…