The United Nations announced today, Wednesday, that more than 136,000 people have fled from the Sennar state in southeastern Sudan since the outbreak of fighting there. These join nearly 10 million others who have been displaced from their homes since the war began between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese army. The war has triggered accusations of committing acts of "ethnic cleansing" and warnings of famine, particularly in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces across the country.
The Rapid Support Forces began a campaign to seize the city of Sennar on June 24, turning their focus swiftly to the smaller cities of Singa and Dinder, which resulted in a mass displacement of civilians from the three cities, especially to the neighboring states of Gedaref and Blue Nile. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN agency, stated in a Wednesday report that since June 24, approximately 136,130 people have been displaced from Sennar. The state is already hosting more than 285,000 displaced individuals from Khartoum and Al-Jazeera, indicating that many of those who left in the past two weeks were likely being displaced for the second or third time.
