Thousands still displaced after recent clashes in South Darfur, UN teams finds

A United Nations inter-agency assessment mission to a mountainous region of Sudan’s South Darfur state has found that several thousand people uprooted from their homes by clashes in March remain displaced.

The mission, which included representatives from the joint African Union-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), estimated that some 2,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are still with host communities

Local leaders informed the team that the majority of those displaced by the inter-factional fighting that erupted in the Jebel Marra region in March have returned to their places of origin after the security situation had stabilized.

The mission, which visited the villages of Guldo and Thur, was the first to the region this year and was intended to confirm the number of people displaced by the clashes and to determine their humanitarian needs, according to UNAMID.

Other areas of the Jebel Marra region are still inaccessible to UNAMID and to aid agencies, which rely on the mission to provide them with security escorts.

UNAMID had responded to the outbreak of violence by increasing its security presence in and around the region, and worked closely with humanitarian partners to help the displaced.

Sporadic fighting continues to persist in Darfur, where nearly seven years of fighting has killed at least 300,000 people and driven 2.7 million others from their homes.