Conflict in Sudan is forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. With no end to the violence in sight, people are desperately seeking safety and protection. The Swarovski Foundation is supporting charity partner UK for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to provide emergency relief to refugees from Sudan.
The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan is forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Since the violence broke out on the 15th April 2023, the situation has remained extremely dire. UNHCR estimates that more than 300,000 people have been forced to flee to neighbouring Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Egypt and Ethiopia.
Sudan hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, mainly from South Sudan, Eritrea, Syria and Ethiopia, as well as Central African Republic, Chad and Yemen. Before the fighting even began, 3.7 million people were already internally displaced.
The Swarovski Foundation is supporting UNHCR’s life-saving efforts providing urgent needs such as food, water, fuel, healthcare, shelter, and protection against gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse.
The humanitarian response is challenging and costly: UNHCR is responding in remote border areas where services and infrastructure are scarce or non-existent, and where host populations already suffer due to climate change and food scarcity. The coming rainy season will make logistics harder as roads will become impassable.
Find out more here on UNHCR’s efforts to respond to the crisis and donate here if you can.
“More than a month into this crisis, countless people remain terrified inside Sudan, and those who have fled across the country’s many borders are in need of help, often finding themselves in places where access is extremely hard and resources strained. Humanitarians are working hard to respond but we need – once again –to call on countries and individuals with the means, to step up and provide the resources so we can help people who have lost everything.”
Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees