South Sudan has appealed for more humanitarian assistance from international donors as it is struggling to cope with the daily influx of returnees and refugees from neighbouring Sudan.
Albino Akol Atak, Minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management, said on Thursday that the $5.3-million budget released by the cabinet in June to respond to the humanitarian situation at the border with Sudan is not enough as it could only last for three months.
“The government and partners put in money but we still have funding gaps because of the big number that are arriving every day, and they are congesting some entry points in Renk, Paloch and Malakal,” Akol told journalists after meeting humanitarian partners in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
He said supplies in the local markets will soon get depleted, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian crisis created since the outbreak of the conflict in Sudan on April 15, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We are seeing that the conflict in Sudan is not stopping soon,” Akol said.
“We are reviewing plans on how to respond to this bigger number. We are anticipating that 500,000 and more people will arrive up to the end of the year.”
South Sudan is currently hosting more than 150,000 returnees and refugees, 90 per cent of whom fled to Sudan during the conflicts in South Sudan in 2013 and 2016.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) recently appealed for $190.5 million to provide essential core services such as health, water, sanitation and hygiene response and the provision of mental health and psychosocial support to returnees and refugees. The appeal also includes transportation of those displaced by the Sudan conflict to settlement areas.
Peter Van der Auweraert, the acting humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, said transportation of returnees and refugees to points of destination remains a major challenge.
“We will struggle in the next couple of months to ensure we have sufficient funding to move people by plane.”
“We will have to provide more humanitarian assistance both at the point of arrival but also at the point of destination,” he added.
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