One million South Sudanese flee amid growing refugee crisis

The number of South Sudanese refugees sheltering in Uganda has reached one million, the United Nations said yesterday, a grim milestone for what has become the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.

Ugandan officials say they are overwhelmed by the flow ofpeoplefleeingsouthsudan’s civil war and the UN refugee agency urges the international community to donate more for humanitarian assistance.

An average of 1,800 South Sudanese have been arriving daily in Uganda over the past 12 months, the UNHCR said. Another one million or more are sheltering in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Congo and Central African Republic.

The number of people fleeing jumped after deadly fighting again erupted in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, in Julylast year.

“Recent arrivals continue to speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription,” the UN said.

“With refugees still arriving in their thousands, the amount of aid we are able to deliver is increasingly falling short.”

A fundraising summit hosted by Uganda in June raised only a fraction of the £1.5 billion Ugandan officials have said is needed to sufficiently look after the refugees and the communities hosting them.

Most of the refugees are women and children fleeing violence, often along ethnic lines, since the world’s newest country erupted into violence in December 2013.

Ugandan refugee officials have repeatedly warned the influx is straining the country’s ability to be generous to the refugees, who often are given small plots of land for building temporary shelters and planting crops when they arrive.

The largest of the settlements hosting refugees from South Sudan, Bidi Bidi, is roughly230squarekilometers (88.8 sq. miles).

The World Food Programme cut food rations for some refugees amid funding shortages in June.

The UN says at least £523 million is needed to support South Sudanese refugees in Uganda this year, although only a fifth of that amount has been received.

The money is needed to provide basic services, including stocking clinics with medicines and putting up schools. Aid agencies say classroom sizes in the few available schools often exceed 200 pupils. 0 Almost 2,000 South Sudanese refugees are flooding into Uganda’s already overstretched refugee camps every day