The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its Sudan aid plan to include Libya and Uganda due to a surge in arrivals.
Sudan, already facing the world’s worst displacement crisis with around 12 million people forced to flee due to civil war, now sees over 2 million displaced across borders. This expansion brings the number of African countries receiving large Sudanese refugees to seven.
The arrival of refugees into Libya raises concerns that they may attempt to continue their journey to Europe—a possibility UNHCR’s chief has warned about if adequate aid is not provided. According to a UNHCR planning document published on Tuesday, the agency expects to receive 149,000 refugees in Libya by the end of the year and projects 55,000 for Uganda, despite it not sharing a direct border with Sudan.
“It just speaks to the desperate situation and desperate decisions that people are making, that they end up in a place like Libya which is of course extremely, extremely difficult for refugees right now,” said UNHCR’s Ewan Watson in Geneva.
So far, at least 20,000 refugees have arrived in Libya since last year, with arrivals accelerating in recent months and many thousands more remaining unregistered. Additionally, at least 39,000 Sudanese refugees have arrived in Uganda since the war began, Watson added.
