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UN estimates 1 million refugees will flee violence in Sudan by October

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The United Nations warned Tuesday that the intensifying violence in Sudan is likely to cause more than one million refugees to flee the country by October, the Associated Press reports.

Violence broke out in mid-April between the Sudanese military led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. So far, more than 3,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced.

The Sudanese capital city of Khartoum has been at the epicenter of the violence, RSF and Arab militias are reportedly attacking non-Arab tribes in western Darfur, AP reports. In a statement this week, the leader of the African Masalit ethnic community said the RSF and Arab militias are “committing genocide against African civilians.”

Most of those who have already escaped the violence in Sudan have gone east to Chad, AP reports. “We were talking about 100,000 people in six months (fleeing to) Chad, Raouf Mazou, assistant secretary-general at United Nations High Commission for Refugees, said at a news conference in Geneva. “And now the colleagues in Chad have revised their figures to 245,000,” Mazou said.

Although there have been nine broken ceasefires since the fighting started, Burhan and Dagalo each announced a truce to honor Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha which began this week, AP reports.