Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya has allocated $5.3 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to support some 195,000 vulnerable refugees and host communities in Libya, where the number of Sudanese refugees has increased significantly since the start of the conflict in April of 2023, the United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.
OCHA said this allocation will support urgent life-saving assistance and kick-start humanitarian response while further resources are being mobilized.
The funding is part of the broader Regional Refugee Response Plan for the Sudan crisis coordinated by UNHCR, now including Libya and Uganda, with aid partners seeking $1.5 billion to support those affected by the conflict. This plan remains very underfunded: So far, only $313 million has been received, just 21 per cent of the total ask.
More than 15 months of conflict has forced a fifth of Sudan’s population to flee. This includes more than 2.1 million people who have crossed into neighbouring countries.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered, as of July 1, more than 40,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled to the country since the start of the conflict in Sudan, but estimates indicate that a much larger number has arrived in the east of the country, with more refugees continuing to flow in, especially with the escalation of the war.
Earlier, Al-Kufra municipality confirmed a significant increase in the number of Sudanese refugees fleeing the civil war in Sudan, with the number reaching 100.000 people who were distributed on 50 committees to issue them health certificates. The municipality indicated that there were no accurate statistics in this regard.
