The number of refugees who have fled Sudan since the outbreak of civil war in 2023 has surpassed four million, the United Nations said Tuesday, warning that worsening violence could drive even more people to flee.
U.N. refugee agency spokesperson Eujin Byun described the displacement as the world’s most damaging crisis today, with regional and global stability at risk if fighting continues. “Now in its third year, the four million people is a devastating milestone,” she told reporters in Geneva.
Most of those displaced have fled to neighboring countries, including Chad, which hosts more than 800,000 Sudanese refugees. Dossou Patrice Ahouansou of the U.N. refugee agency said only 14% of funding appeals for aid in Chad have been met, leaving refugees in desperate need of basic shelter and care.
“This is an unprecedented crisis that we are facing. This is a crisis of humanity,” Ahouansou said, recounting harrowing accounts from refugees who have survived armed attacks, forced labor, and trauma during their escape.
Among them is a seven-year-old girl he met in Chad, who lost her leg during an attack on her home in Sudan’s Zamzam displacement camp that killed her father and brothers. “Her mother had already been killed in an earlier attack,” he said.
Refugees have also described how militias forcibly took their horses and donkeys, then made them carry their own relatives by cart as they fled.
