The United Nations has warned that more than 800,000 people could flee Sudan because of the fighting that broke out in mid-April between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) due to disagreements over the integration of the latter into the armed forces as one of the steps towards a democratic transition process.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has indicated that the organization, »together with governments and partners», is preparing »for the possibility that more than 800,000 people may flee the fighting in Sudan to neighboring countries».
We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if the violence doesn’t stop, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan in search of safety,» Grandi said in a brief message posted on his official Twitter account. The fighting has caused tens of thousands of people to flee to Egypt, Chad, South Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR).
Hostilities broke out on April 15 amid rising tensions over the integration of the RSF – led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’, who is also vice-president of the Sovereign Transitional Council – into the Armed Forces, a key part of an agreement signed in December to form a new civilian government and revive the transition.
The talks process kicked off with international mediation after the army chief and president of the Sovereign Transitional Council, Abdelfata al-Burhan, led a coup in October 2021 that ousted the then unity prime minister, Abdullah Hamdok, appointed to the post following civil-military contacts after the April 2019 uprising that ended 30 years of Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s regime.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
