Steep rise in numbers of Sudanese refugees fleeing violence

By Ingrid Formanek, CNN

(CNN) — Nearly 2.8 million people have fled the war in Sudan, latest data from the United Nations International Organization for Migration, (IOM), shows.

Some 2,152,936 people are estimated to have been internally displaced, while another 644,861 fled across Sudan’s borders into neighboring countries, according to the IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) report published Tuesday.

The numbers show an increase of more than 230,000 internally displaced and refugees over a one-week period.

“Additional reports of displacement are likely to emerge as the situation becomes clearer,” DTM’s report states, explaining the preliminary estimates.

In the war’s 11th week, many conflict areas in the country have prevented access to field teams gathering exact figures, according to the report.

Of the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled to neighboring countries since the war broke out on April 15, more than 255,000 have crossed to Egypt, more than 180,000 to Chad, followed by South Sudan, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Libya.

CNN found that many of those who had fled Sudan to neighboring countries have found themselves stranded without passports.

Some of their passports, they said, were destroyed by the US embassy, where the documents were being held for visa processing when the fighting broke out.

Several testimonies and emails reviewed by CNN show that the American embassy in Khartoum destroyed the passports when it evacuated the country on April 22, citing standard procedure to prevent the documents from falling into the wrong hands.

Fierce fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) first broke out on April 15 and has descended into a brutal conflict, characterized by reports of sexual and genocidal violence and civilian casualties, and triggering an exodus of refugees.

Hopes for a peaceful transition to civilian rule have been left in tatters. Forces loyal to two rival generals are vying for control, and as is so often the case, civilians have suffered the most.

As many as 3,000 people have been killed since the conflict started on April 15, Sudan’s minister of health, Haitham Ibrahim, told Saudi-owned al-Hadath News Television on June 17.

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CNN’s Sana Noor Haq contributed to this report.