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South Sudan Emergency – Background
Aid for the Uprooted
Since December 2013, brutal conflict in South Sudan has claimed thousands of innocent lives and driven well over a million of people from their homes. While many remain displaced inside the country, hundreds of thousands have fled to Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda in a desperate bid to reach safety.
The situation in South Sudan and neighbouring countries has quickly escalated into a full-blown humanitarian emergency. Although UNHCR is doing all it can to provide relief and life-saving shelter with limited resources, displacement in the region is expected to rise until a political solution is found.
The majority of the refugees are women and children, many of whom flee across the border alone. Often they arrive weak and malnourished. When the rainy season came, their needs were compounded by flooding, food shortages and disease.
Ethiopia currently hosts the largest number of South Sudanese refugees, with recent arrivals escaping the ongoing fighting in neighbouring Jonglei and Upper Nile states. Many of them feared imminent attack or struggled with food insecurity. To accommodate them, UNHCR and the Ethiopian authorities opened three new camps during 2014, two of which are already full.
As violence in South Sudan continues to escalate, those who fled desperately need protection, shelter, medical care and other assistance. Through an inter-agency regional refugee response plan, UNHCR has appealed for US$ 567 million to enable it and its partners to respond to these needs and restore hope to those who have been uprooted.
