Cairo. The escalating conflict in Sudan has driven more than 4 million people from their homes, of whom some 884,000 have fled to neighboring countries, a UN official said on Tuesday.
It has also led to disease outbreaks and a rise in malnutrition, according to William Spindler, a spokesman for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. From mid-May to mid-July, the UNHCR has recorded more than 300 deaths from measles and malnutrition, mostly among children under five, Spindler told reporters in Geneva.
Clashes between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force are intensifying in the east of Khartoum, the capital, and in the neighboring city of Omdurman.
Simmering tensions between the army, led by Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitaries, led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, erupted into pitched battles in April and plunged the country into chaos.
“The chronic shortage of health personnel, as well as the attacks on personnel denounced by the World Health Organization, have seriously compromised the quality of medical care throughout the country,” Spindler said.
On Monday, army operations in Khartoum and surrounding areas killed about 20 FAR troops, military spokesman Nabil Abdallah said. The FAR did not acknowledge those casualties, saying its fighters killed dozens of soldiers in street battles in Omdurman. The Associated Press was unable to verify these claims.
Rival forces had ordered civilians to leave the Abu Zouf district due to intensifying fighting, according to the Resistance Committees, a network that advocates for democracy.
Omdurman’s Al-Nou hospital, where many of the wounded are being treated, is short on surgeons, blood and oxygen tanks, the Sudanese Medical Union said on Tuesday.
In June, the government said more than 3,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, but has released no further data since. Activists and doctors say the real number is probably much higher.
Khartoum has become an urban battlefield, where many people lack water and electricity. In western Darfur, fighting has escalated into ethnic violence, with the FAR and its allied Arab militias targeting ethnic African populations.
Amnesty International has accused both sides of war crimes, and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor’s office announced last month that it will investigate allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
As the rainy season began, Spindler said UNHCR expects outbreaks of cholera and malaria in the coming months. Last year floods caused dozens of deaths.
