20120826
Press TV
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHCR) has warned that Sudan’s refugees spread out in neighboring South Sudan are facing a humanitarian crisis.

"With 170,000 Sudanese refugees now in camps and settlements across South Sudan’s Unity and Upper Niles states, the health situation among this population has become a matter of increasing alarm to us,” UNCHCR said in a statement on Friday.

The statement further added that the refugees are suffering from respiratory tract infections, diarrhea and malaria due to the cold and rainy weather.

According to the UN agency, most of the refugees are young children, accompanied by mothers who are also sick, with almost half in the Upper Nile state under the age of 11.


Adrian Edwards, the UNHCR spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva on Friday that in Yusuf Batil, a camp hosting 34,000 Sudanese from the Blue Nile state, 15 percent of the children under five and nearly 1,600 in number are severely malnourished.

Meanwhile, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has called on all institutions engaged in stabilizing the situation to take immediate action to safeguard recent gains in the peace process.