Critical water, sanitation situation in Sudan’s White Nile refugee sites

The overall water and sanitation situation in most sites hosting South Sudanese refugees in White Nile state remains critical.

The water supply in most sites is below 10 litres per person per day, which is less than half of UNHCR’s post-emergency standard of 20 litres, OCHA reports in its latest weekly bulletin.

Both the lack of funding and the inability of organisations to proportionately scale up operations given the sudden influx of new arrivals have contributed to this gap. In addition, camp congestion remains a critical issue with 18,288 families (about 91,000 people) hosted in the state’s seven sites.

According to standards of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), current capacity is sufficient for 47,000 people. This means that the sites are cumulatively hosting 44,000 people above their capacity. Procedures for an extension of Al Alagaya site are under way, which when completed will accommodate some 3,500 people.

Radio Dabanga reported on Wednesday that representatives of the federal and state Ministries of Health, with the support from the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a comprehensive cholera risk assessment in the White Nile refugee sites.

Increased influx

More than 189,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled into Sudan since the outbreak of the conflict in South Sudan in December 2013, representing over half of the 368,000 refugees and asylum seekers currently in Sudan, according to UNHCR figures from 31 July 2015.

White Nile, Blue Nile, South, West and North Kordofan states where the South Sudanese refugee population is concentrated.

More than 112,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea, and others from Ethiopia are hosted in eastern Sudanese camps, while refugees from Chad and the Central African Republic are living in Darfur refugee camps.

The large and growing presence of refugees and asylum seekers is placing additional pressure on the already limited humanitarian resources and funding, the OCHA bulletin reads.

The influx of South Sudanese refugees into Sudan in particular has overstretched humanitarian capacity as the expected total number of refugees in 2015 (some 196,000) has nearly been reached.

As a result, figures for the remainder of the year are under revision. In addition, funding for the inter-agency response to South Sudanese refugees remains low, with only 15 per cent of funding requirements secured to date.

In total, UNHCR's budget for 2015 has been set at $130.6 million, including $97.1 million for refugee activities and $30.5 million for internally displaced people. Almost $3.1 million is allocated to the stateless programme. UNCHR states in its 2015 Sudan operations profile that it will issue a supplementary appeal for additional requirements, should the emergency needs for South Sudanese refugees continue to expand.