South Sudan: More Than 11,000 South Sudanese Flee to Ethiopia After Fall of
Rebel-Held Town
6 May 2014
press release
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - The UN refugee agency on Tuesday reported a sharp
rise in the number of refugees fleeing South Sudan's conflict, after
government forces captured the rebel stronghold of Nasir in the Greater
Upper Nile region over the weekend.
"In the past 72 hours, over 11,000 people have crossed into the Ethiopian
town of Burubiey, a small remote community on the shores of the Baro River
which marks the border between the two countries," UNHCR spokesman Adrian
Edwards said.
"The refugees tell us that more people are on their way, with many amassed
on the South Sudanese side of the border waiting to cross the river on one
of the few small ferry boats. The newly arrived refugees, all ethnic Nuers,
report thousands more are fleeing Nasir [some 30 kilometres from the
border]," he added.
The refugees are being registered on arrival and given basic medical and
nutritional care plus relief items at a reception centre opened last week by
UNHCR and Ethiopia's Administration for Refugees and Returnees Affairs
(ARRA).
UNHCR and its partners, including ARRA and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society,
are scaling up their responses to meet the surge in new arrivals - some of
them in urgent need of medical help - and to ease the crowded conditions.
"Thousands of people are still waiting to be registered, and we are moving
staff from the nearby Leitchuor refugee camp to Burubiey to help, while
giving priority to people with urgent health and nutrition needs. We are
also working on flying additional staff and relief items to the area,"
Edwards said.
Once registered, refugees are being moved to Kule refugee camp, which lies
some 250 km to the east. This camp is fast approaching its capacity of
40,000 refugees, and a new camp is being established nearby to accommodate
another 30,000 people.
UNHCR partner, the International Organization for Migration, is also
increasing its capacity to transport people away from the border with South
Sudan's Jonglei state to the established camps. Heavy rains are expected any
time and this will make the relocation of refugees from Burubiey
challenging.
The vast majority of new arrivals are still women and children (more than 70
per cent), although an increasing number of men are now also fleeing. More
than 110,000 refugees have fled South Sudan to Ethiopia since the outbreak
of violence last December. So far, around 102,000 have gone through initial
registration. They are staying in four camps in western Ethiopia's Gambella
state, run by UNHCR and ARRA.
Another 205,000 refugees have fled to Uganda (102,698), Sudan (67,401) and
Kenya (34,770) while some 923,000 people are displaced inside South Sudan
itself. Overall, more than 1.3 million are displaced from the current
crisis.
Meanwhile, an inter-agency appeal for the South Sudanese refugee crisis
remains dramatically underfunded, with only 14 per cent of the requested
US$370 million received.