The World Food Programme (WFP) says an escalation of new violence in Sudan’s western region of Darfur has prompted over 250,000 people to flee their villages and abandon their livelihoods since early this year.

Although this was the season when people should be planting and working on farms, they were instead fleeing their villages.

WFP’s Spokesperson Elizabeth Byrs tells UN Radio’s Patrick Maigua in Geneva, that with the recent displacement, the total number of people receiving assistance in Darfur is expected to rise to almost four million. She stresses that the agency has to raise $217 million to meet the needs of the displaced until the end of the year.

Duration: 3’33”