GENEVA – Driven by fresh fighting, horrendous acts of violence and facing drought and famine, thousands of people are fleeing South Sudan, making it the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

Total displacement from South Sudan into the surrounding region has now reached 1.6 million people, an astonishingly high percentage of the country’s former total population of some 11 million. The rate of new displacement is alarming, representing an impossible burden on a region that is economically challenged and fast running short of resources to cope.