9,880 new arrivals at South Darfur’s Gereida camp since April: OCHA

An inter-agency field mission led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to Gereida, South Darfur from 25 to 29 November found that 1,976 families (9,880 people) have fled to the area since April 2013. This includes people displaced by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) in Um Gonja, Abu Jabra, Gereig, Donki Dreisa, Labado and Muhajeriya in East Darfur in April 2013. Newly displaced people who arrived following armed clashes between the Gimr and Beni Halba tribes in South Darfur in March 2013, and Salamat-Taisha fighting in August 2013 in Um Dukhun, Central Darfur, and in South Darfur’s Katayla and Ed El Fursan localities are included in this figure. The new displaced are sheltered in two open spaces within the Gereida camp for the displaced. The UN World Food Programme is providing emergency food assistance to these newly displaced. The Sudanese Red Crescent Society will distribute non-food relief supplies with support from the UN Refugee Agency and the UN Office for Project Services. Care International-Switzerland, the American Refugee Committee and the Government of Sudan’s Water and Environmental Sanitation Department are providing the newly displaced with clean water, sanitation and waste disposal. The insecurity in many rural areas in South Darfur where new civilian displacement has taken place, has meant that international humanitarian organisations have not been able to conduct inter-agency needs assessments or identify humanitarian needs. File photo (OCHA humanitarian bulletin, Sudan, Issue 48)  Related: Health care and medicine shortage in Gereida camp, South Darfur (13 October 2013)