Hostilities force about 5mln people out of Sudan's Khartoum Province

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
17 Aug 2023 22:16
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The current estimates reveal that about 5 million residents of Khartoum Province have been displaced to other provinces in Sudan.

Jordanians evacuated from Sudan arrive at a military airport in Amman, Jordan, on April 24, 2023. (AP)

Since hostilities broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, around 5 million people have left Khartoum, the capital province of Sudan, according to Thursday's statement to Sputnik by Siddiq Hassan Freini, the province's minister for social provision.

"According to current estimates, about 5 million residents of Khartoum province have moved to other provinces in Sudan," the Minister said.

According to Freini, the armed war has made the province's poverty worse.

"It [poverty] is estimated at about 80%, which increases the responsibility of the government in the future from a social point of view, when the war is over," the official added.

Violent clashes between the RSF and the Sudanese army started on April 15 and were centered around Khartoum. Since then, the parties to the conflict have enacted a number of brief, nationwide ceasefires, but none of them has yet contributed to a peaceful resolution. The battle has claimed hundreds of lives according to the UN, and the Red Cross has warned that continued conflicts run the risk of destroying the nation's healthcare system.

It is worth noting that in July, the conflict displaced some three million people out of their homes in less than three months, the United Nation's International Organization for Migration said.

With more than 2.2 million internally displaced Sudanese people and nearly 700,000 others who had to flee the country as a whole, the figures obtained back then by the IOM through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) revealed that the conflict displaced close to three million people.

The IOM revealed that the majority of the people were displaced from Khartoum (67%) and Darfur (33%) toward Northern State (16%), the River Nile (14%), West Darfur (7%), and White Nile states.

Darfur, a vast western region on the border with Chad, has witnessed the deadliest violence since the war erupted.

Moreover, two-thirds of Sudan's health facilities in the main battlegrounds remained out of service, the World Health Organization said, with some bombed and others occupied by fighters.

The few hospitals that were still operating were also extremely low on medical supplies, struggling to obtain fuel to power generators, and understaffed.