Over one million refugees have fled Sudan conflict to South Sudan

More than one million people have fled the conflict in Sudan, seeking refuge in neighboring South Sudan, according to the United Nations. In its latest update revealed January 22 on one of the world’s worst displacement crises, the UN reported that over 770,000 people have crossed through the Joda crossing on South Sudan’s northern border with Sudan in the past 21 months.

Tens of thousands have also crossed at other points, bringing the total number of refugees to South Sudan to more than one million since the war erupted between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in April 2023, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“The arrival of over a million people into South Sudan is a stark and sobering statistic, highlighting the increasing scale of this crisis,” said Sanaa Abdalla Omer of UNHCR. The majority of those crossing the border are South Sudanese nationals who had previously fled civil war in the world’s newest country. Despite their own hardships, South Sudanese people continue to show remarkable generosity in hosting refugees, but Omer stressed that the country cannot shoulder this burden alone. Two transit centres in Renk County, which were designed to accommodate fewer than 5,000 people, are now sheltering over 16,000. The UN has called for increased support for both displaced people and the host communities, warning that South Sudan’s resources—such as healthcare, water, and shelter—are dangerously overstretched.