Geneva, Feb 23 (AFP/APP): Around 7,000 people have fled rapidly-escalating communal violence in western Ethiopia, seeking safety in neighbouring Sudan, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The region has long been plagued by competition over land and resources, and the UN said many people arriving in Sudan are seeking food, water and health care. The displacement is not related to the unrest in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which has pushed more than 61,000 to flee also into Sudan in recent months. Tensions have been high in the Metekel Zone of the western Benishangul-Gumuz region since 2019, with several reports of inter-communal attacks, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said.
A few hundred refugees crossed the border in November but the number has surged since then. “The situation has rapidly escalated in the past three months,” spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters in Geneva. “The stories the refugees are bringing — they are fleeing attacks from their opponents,” said Baloch. UNHCR said that of those who have reached southeastern Sudan’s Blue Nile State, around 3,000 have so far been registered, while nearly 1,000 have been provided with humanitarian assistance.
