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More than 600,000 people – both refugees and returnees – have crossed the border into South Sudan since violence escalated in Sudan last April. Every day about 1,000 people are arriving in a region already facing a severe hunger crisis, and the numbers continue to rise as the hostilities in Sudan show no sign of abating. Most people arrive with nothing, having lost their homes and livelihoods. Some children have reported seeing loved ones, including their parents, killed on route.
The majority have arrived at the border crossing of Joda in Upper Nile State by foot or on donkey carts, from where up to 200 people at a time are crammed into trucks with standing room only. They are taken to two overcrowded transit centres in nearby Renk, a two-hour journey on dirt tracks in temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) as South Sudan battles its worst heatwave in four years.
They usually spend about two weeks in the centres, where food and water are scarce, healthcare is limited, and many sleep outside in makeshift shelters. From there 500 people at a time are packed onto barges for a two-day journey along the Nile to head to other destinations in South Sudan or packed into trucks headed for a refugee camp in Maban.
Most of these families have been displaced before. Many fled to Sudan from South Sudan in 2013 when widespread intercommunal violence erupted just two years after the country celebrated its independence as the world’s newest nation. Despite a peace deal in South Sudan in 2018, the country is still facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, plagued by continuing violence, repeated climate disasters, widespread hunger, mass displacement and now soaring prices. Even before the Sudan war, about 9 million people – about 75% of the population ¬– including nearly 5 million children were in need of humanitarian assistance.
Since the escalation of violence in Sudan, Save the Children has expanded its operations in Renk to assist families. Staff members are on location from the border to the boats to keep children and families safe, help them on and off the trucks, see to their immediate needs and emotional welfare, as well as reunite unaccompanied children with their families.
Save the Children has worked in South Sudan since 1991. The child rights organisation provides children with access to education, healthcare and nutritional support, and families with food security and livelihoods assistance. In 2023, the organisation’s programmes reached over XX million children and this year Save the Children hopes to reach XX million people in South Sudan.
