A quarter of a million refugees “searching for another asylum”

Aspas Darma, a 33-year-old Eritrean refugee who lives in a two-storey house east of Khartoum with 12 others of the same nationality, spends most of his day searching for a way to cross Sudan’s borders in the hope of a better life, in light of the difficult economic conditions in which the country he has taken refuge is experiencing. him 3 years ago.

The case of Darma applies to thousands of refugees in Sudan, where the past months have witnessed a significant increase in the number of African and Arab refugees who left Sudan, either to return to their countries of origin, or to cross the Mediterranean Sea towards Europe to escape the economic crisis that affected their humanitarian situation, in light of the high rate of inflation. The depreciation of the local currency.

Sudan ranks among the most African countries in terms of hosting refugees, as it hosts about 1.3 million refugees, mostly from Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Central Africa and Chad, in addition to Yemen, Syria and some other countries, and 70 percent of them live outside refugee camps.

With the growing economic crisis and the complexity of the refugee situation, the United Nations agencies in Sudan appealed to international donors to increase funding and humanitarian aid, and international donors have been providing humanitarian response funds in the range of one billion dollars annually, but this funding has decreased in the recent period.
An employee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sudan Office, told Sky News Arabia, on condition that his name be withheld, that the UN office receives thousands of requests per month to provide subsidies in addition to immigration requests to other countries, indicating an “urgent desire among refugees to leave Sudan.” as a result of deteriorating economic conditions.

R Tesfaye, an Ethiopian refugee who works as a guard in a building in central Khartoum, told Sky News Arabia that the economic situation forced him to think about returning to his country, which he left in search of a better future.

He adds: “We used to get financial aid from the United Nations, but it stopped several months ago, and I am facing a problem in providing for daily expenses in light of low wages and the high cost of living.”

The economic crisis in Sudan has put the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees at stake in light of the scarcity of the labor market, and the matter is becoming increasingly complicated, as most of the refugees are children and women, according to United Nations data.

There is disparity among the refugees who fled to Sudan from their countries. Some of them are obliged to stay in this country due to their sense of social security, but on the economic level they will have to leave, especially with the increase in the number of hungry people.

According to the forecasts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 18 million of Sudan’s total population of about 40 million are facing the threat of hunger.

Awatef Idris, an expert in international organizations concerned with refugees, says that Sudan is characterized by the ease of social integration, which made hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring countries prefer it over other countries.

But she added in her interview with “Sky News Arabia”: “This feature is no longer attractive to refugees in return for the economic crisis and the scarcity of international support provided to them,” she said.

The number of refugees who left Sudan in the last two years is estimated at 250,000, and headed to Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Eritrea. The expert pointed out that a small number were able to move to Europe, the United States and Canada.

Awatef Idris says that “the international community is no longer indifferent to the refugee crisis in Sudan or Africa as a result of the progress of other files that are more important to international decision-makers, such as the Russian war in Ukraine and the specter of the food crisis that threatens many countries due to the repercussions of this war.”

She adds: “It is normal for you to leave your home to escape the war and bombing, and to seek refuge in a neighboring country, but you cannot stay there without money and work.”