South Sudan seeks 358 mln USD to support returnees displaced from Sudan

(Credit: OCHA/Jacob Zocherman)

JUBA, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan said on Thursday that it is seeking 358 million U.S. dollars in funds to respond to the influx of people displaced as a result of the deadly clashes in Sudan.

Albino Akol Atak, minister of humanitarian affairs and disaster management, said deadly clashes that erupted in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have displaced nearly 300,000 people into South Sudan, warning that the number might increase to half a million people who will urgently need humanitarian support.

Akol said the government and humanitarian agencies set up a humanitarian pool when the crisis in Sudan started in mid-April to respond to the needs and the costs of operation.

"In the first three months, we realized that the operation (humanitarian response) would require 96 million dollars to be contributed by both partners and the government, but when we reviewed the plans recently, we realized that the operation would require up to 358 million dollars to respond to the crisis by the end of the year," he told journalists in the capital of Juba.

Akol said the influx of displaced persons as a result of the Sudan crisis compounds further the existing humanitarian catastrophe the country is already going through in which 9.4 million people were already in need of humanitarian aid, including 300,000 returnees who had voluntarily returned home from neighboring Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia as a result of relative peace.