More than one million people had fled South Sudan to neighbouring Uganda said the United Nations refugee agency earlier this month, as violence in the country continues.
“Over the past 12 months, an average of 1,800 South Sudanese have been arriving in Uganda every day,” said the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a statement earlier this month.
“In addition to the million there, a million or even more South Sudanese refugees are being hosted by Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic,” it added.
“We’re looking at Africa’s biggest displacement crisis,” Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the agency, said in an interview with the New York Times. “It points to the dramatic worsening of the situation inside the country.”
UN peacekeepers in the country have found themselves unable to halt the spread of violence, which has spread to new provinces across the country. South Sudan’s government has now said it wants to review the peacekeepers' role to “revisit their mandate so that they render better services to the people of South Sudan”.
Fighting in the country has been raging between different ethnic groups in the country and forces loyal to current President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Riek Machar.
