UN camp in Sudan registers new Tigrayan refugees

The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR says it has continued to register new refugee arrivals at the Sudanese-Ethiopian border.

Some 800 people crossed from Ethiopia's Tigray region into eastern Sudan in just the first few days of the new year according to the agency.

Since early November, more than 56,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled to neighbouring Sudan.

Grisgeher Lahol is one.

"We arrived here yesterday after two months of displacement. We found the situation better here. Since we arrived, we found that cooked food and we ate. We stood in line for a quarter of an hour only and we received our tent and settled in. The people who arrived before us have received everything: lights, solar panels and donations.", Lahol said.

As at the end of 2020, US$40 million was pledged to the UNHCR for the regional response to the emergency in Ethiopia's Tigray region.

In support of the government-led response in Sudan, UNHCR and Sudan's Commission for Refugees (COR) say they have continued to relocate the refugees from the arrival locations at the border to the designated refugee camps, further inland in Sudan's Gedaref State.

With the Um Rakuba refugee camp approaching its full capacity, UNHCR and its partners say they want to keep refugees safe and offer them better living conditions.