More than 55,000 Sudanese refugees flee to Chad as UN calls for funding

UN refugee agency says 400 people a day, about 20 times the previous daily rate, now cross from Sudan into eastern Chad.

More than 55,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to neighbouring Chad this year, compounding a humanitarian crisis that will only deteriorate further unless there is a significant increase in funding, the United Nations has warned.

The number of Sudanese people arriving in eastern Chad has “accelerated sharply” over the past week and is outpacing the available support, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday.

The number of refugees entering via Chad’s border areas of Adre and Tine has risen to 400 people a day, about 20 times the daily rate of previous months, the agency added.

Sudan has been engulfed in a civil war since April 2023, when a power struggle between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, turned violent.

More than three years later, in excess of 11 million Sudanese people have been displaced in what has become the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crisis.

Approximately 6.4 million people in Sudan are internally displaced, while more than 3.5 million Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers have fled to nearby countries.

The UN warned on Friday that the transit centre in Chad’s Tine is under severe pressure and currently hosts more than 4,300 people, many of whom are in urgent need of shelter, water, sanitation and protection services.

About 31,000 families lack adequate shelter, and most refugees are living on less than half of the minimum amount of water needed daily.

The UN says it has so far received only 20 percent of the $1.6bn needed to fund response efforts. It says that the dire situation will deteriorate further unless the international community helps plug the funding shortfall of $1.28bn.

The UN warned that without additional help, more Sudanese refugees will make the perilous journey to Europe. More than 14,100 Sudanese refugees arrived on the continent last year, a 245 percent increase compared with 2024.