Geneva/Cairo/Port Sudan, 16 October 2023 (IOM)* – Six months into the conflict, Sudan has become the largest internal displacement crisis in the world with over 7.1 million people displaced within the country, 4.5 million of whom have been displaced since violence erupted in mid-April, according to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Ali, originally from Khartoum, is now forced to sleep in the open air in Northern Sudan. Shelter is among the most pressing needs for millions displaced by the violence. Photo: IOM Sudan/Noory Taha
Approximately three million are originally from Khartoum, the capital and the epicenter of the conflict.
Marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Mr. Guterres pointed out that nearly 700 million people are living on less than $2.15 per day and over a billion don’t have access to basic needs like food, water, health care and education.
Billions more lack sanitation and access to energy, jobs, housing and social safety nets, he added.
Distress is being deepened by conflicts, the climate crisis, discrimination and exclusion – particularly against women and girls, the UN chief said.
Less than a kilometre from Gaza, pallets of food, fuel, water, and medicine are among the hundreds of tonnes of lifesaving aid packed into a long convoy of trucks idling on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, as drivers await Israel’s green light so they can reach 2.3 million besieged Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the ongoing war.
As humanitarians continued to echo the UN Secretary-General’s urgent calls on Israel to open a safe aid delivery corridor, Gaza will soon run out of basic supplies, according to UN agencies on the ground, who raised alarms about a looming unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.