Near 1000 People Crossing into Ethiopia from Sudan Daily
ADDIS ABABA – The number of people arriving in Ethiopia due to the ongoing situation in Sudan has reached nearly 48,000, a new report reveals.
“People continue to arrive at a rate of close to 1,000 on a daily basis,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha) said in its latest update on Friday.
Most of the recent arrivals are Ethiopian returnees, per the Unocha update.
Close to 48,000 border crossings from Sudan into Amhara and Benishangul Gumuz regions of Ethiopia have been recorded since the onset of the conflict in Sudan in mid April.
The majority of them (36, 200) entered via the Metema border point of entry at West Gondar Zone of the Amhara region.
Authorities along with humanitarian partners are providing hot meals, health services, nutrition screening and supplementation, transportation services, and relocation activities.
This response, however, has recently been affected by heavy rainfall that the Metema District is experiencing recently.
The heavy rainfall on the night of May 28, particularly, damaged shelter and personal belongings of arrivals as well as medical supplies, interrupting health services for several hours.
This has created further challenges to an emergency response already facing gaps in resources to meet the needs of present and arriving people from Sudan.
“Risk mitigation ahead of the Kiremt rainfall season (June – September) is necessary and therefore requires speeding up of the installation of resilient shelters and infrastructures,” UNOCHA said.
In addition to Metema, “more than 11,000 returnees in Guba Woreda of Benishangul Gumuz, require emergency assistance including food and shelter,” the Agency said.
The agency stated that”additional funding urgently required to support ongoing response to influx” from the neighboring country.
The conflict in Sudan began on 15 April and was triggered by a power struggle between former allies – the leaders of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
On Thursday, members of the Expanded Mechanism for the Resolution of the Conflict in Sudan expressed concern over the continued fighting and stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict.
Members of the mechanism including African Union (AU), UN, IGAD and the League of Arab States made the call during their meeting of the mechanism in Addis Ababa, said the African Union (AU) in a statement that urged parties to the conflict to fully commit to undertaking their obligations to protect civilians and civil infrastructure.
More than 860 people have been killed and 3, 531 others injured in the conflict that forced more than 1.3 million people to flee and threatened to destabilize the region.
