“Five years after independence, this is a very sad milestone”, spokesman Leo Dobbs told reporters in Geneva.
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The number of South Sudanese who have taken refuge in neighboring countries topped the one-million mark this week, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported Friday.
The U.N. says another 1.6 million people are displaced inside South Sudan. A ceasefire agreement was signed in August 2015 but intense fighting broke out in the capital Juba in July, prompting Machar to flee the country and leading Kiir to remove him from the role of first vice-president.
Some of these refugees are victims of “violent attacks, sexual assault, children (who) have been separated from their parents. and people in need of urgent medical care”, the agency stated.
The countries that have produced the most refugees are Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Uganda is home to more than 370,000 South Sudanese refugees, with more than a third of that number having arrived since early July.
The UNHCR lauded these countries for keeping their doors open to the new arrivals.
Actors George Clooney (L-R) and Don Cheadle and The Sentry co-founder John Prendergast discuss The Sentry’s investigation into the ongoing humanitarian crisis in South Sudan during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, U.S. September 12, 2016.
Since South Sudan split from Sudan ending a two decade-old civil war, both countries have accused each other of backing rebels on their respective territories.
However, Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Petr Illichev warned that such a move could harm attempts to bring peace and believes the South Sudanese government should be given at least a month to start fulfilling its pledges.
But in July this year, that deal fell apart, violence erupted and Machar fled to DR Congo.
And there is no end in sight: over the past week alone, more than 20,000 new arrivals were registered in Uganda.
There was no immediate government comment, and it was not immediately clear how long the closure would last.
Sudan said on Sunday it would close its border with South Sudan within days if its neighbour did not expel militant groups, the government told state media.
The Sentry report found that “top officials ultimately responsible for mass atrocities in South Sudan have at the same time managed to accumulate fortunes, despite modest government salaries”.
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A recent report released this week revealed how leaders of the two factions of government were behind the killing of citizens in their masses, raping and also looting funds and amassing enormous wealth inside and outside the country.
