Over 69,000 S.Sudanese flee to Sudan since January: UN

More than 69,000 South Sudanese have arrived in neighbouring Sudan since January, fleeing conflict and food shortages in their war-torn country, the United Nations said on Thursday.

South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 but two years later it fell into a brutal civil war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

"More than 69,000 South Sudanese have arrived in various locations in Sudan since January 2016 as a result of ongoing conflict and deteriorating food security conditions in South Sudan," said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

Newly displaced women discussing their concerns with UNAMID personnel at Zam Zam camp for internally displaced people (IDP), near El Fasher in North Darfur, on February 18, 2014 ©Hamid Abdulsalam (UNAMID/AFP/File)

The majority of the new arrivals had come to East Darfur, it said, adding that several other regions of Sudan, including South Darfur and West Kordofan, were also hosting refugees.

East Darfur was hosting "about 45,500 people or 66 percent of all the new arrivals in 2016," said OCHA.

As many as 226,950 South Sudanese have sought refuge in Sudan since the start of the civil war in December 2013, the UN says.

Until recently, the Sudanese government did not give South Sudanese the same status as refugees, according them many of the same rights and benefits as Sudanese citizens.

But Khartoum ended that policy in March and said South Sudanese should be classified as "foreigners" over Juba's alleged support for rebels battling Sudanese troops in the border region.

South Sudan is one of the poorest countries on the planet, and had some of the world's worst indicators for development, health and education even before the war erupted.

Fighting erupted there with the falling out between President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, who served as vice president when South Sudan won independence until his dismissal in 2013.

But in April rebel leader Machar returned to Juba and was sworn in as vice president, raising hopes of implementing a peace accord that was signed in August but has yet to take hold.

The conflict in South Sudan has witnessed the abduction and rape of thousands of women and girls, massacres of civilians, recruitment of child soldiers, murder, mutilation and even cannibalism.

At least 50,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and more than two million forced to flee from their homes.