Sudanese official complains about pressure of refugees on region
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - A government official in Eastern Gadarif state has complained that the heavy presence of refugees in his state has now negatively impacted the local communities, with regional and international organizations failing to intervene to correct the situation.
Gadarif, on the borderline with Ethiopia’s Tigray region where war has been going on for over a year, hosts over 50,000 newcomers in camps erected outside the town itself.
These are the newcomers. At one time, one half of the town's population was considered to be Ethiopians.
Mohamed Abdel-Rahman Mahgoub said the refugee camps in the state had become a heavy burden, pressurizing the provision of basic services to the inhabitants of the state.
They also complain of “little assistance provided by organizations despite the fact that there are so many of them in the state.
The governor told a press conference on Wednesday that his government was trying to deal differently with those organizations in 2022, hinting that the local communities where the refugees were settled were being ignored by these organizations.
In Eastern Sudan, most of the refugee camps are open and the people live and share the same services provided by the government for its people, including such basic services such as water and health.
He stated that the local fauna resources were being depleted and excessive felling trees for fuel by the refugees was “damaging the environment”.
The official news agency said the area hosts over 45,000 refugees in camps inside Umm Rakouba, Al-Tunaidiba and Babikri in Bassonda locality, most of them from the Tigray and Qumuz nationalities within Ethiopia.
In November 2020, military confrontations between federal and regional forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which borders both Sudan and Eritrea, led the government to declare a state of emergency.
Since then, and despite the announcement of an official end to military operations at the end of November, Ethiopia’s Tigray region has continued to be affected by armed clashes and insecurity.
According to reports by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) since the violence began, more than 50,000 people have fled into Sudan in search of safety as of mid-December.
During the height of the influx, more than 1,000 people on average were arriving each day, overwhelming the capacity to provide aid.
-0-PANA MO/RA 5Jan2022
