South Sudan was already in crisis. Then Sudan’s conflict erupted.





Under the blistering sun, desperate families wait patiently to climb onto a truck.
Nearby, small buses are already packed.
Some look relieved after weeks of exhausting travel.
Others are apprehensive about their next steps, now that they have finally arrived in South Sudan.
This is the latest wave of refugees and returnees, embarking on the next chapter of their lives having been uprooted by the intense conflict in Sudan.
One young woman says this is the first time in a long while she has felt safe.
“The situation there has gotten worse, that’s why we left” she says.
“Because of this war, it’s become very unstable.”
Since the conflict in Sudan began more than 16 months ago, more than 18,000 people have been killed according to the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission.
Tens of thousands more have been injured and millions face extreme hunger as Sudan grapples with unprecedented shortages of food.
The conflict has also sparked the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Eight million people are internally displaced within Sudan with more than half of those being children.
Two million people have crossed Sudan’s borders seeking safety.
Hundreds of thousands of those have come through the Joda border point in Upper Nile, travelling to South Sudan to seek refuge.


And while these families have crossed into the relative safety of South Sudan ...
... their hardship is far from over.
Before the Sudan crisis, South Sudan was already struggling with significant food availability and security issues.
According to the UN, nine million people, or three-quarters of South Sudan’s population, need humanitarian assistance.
These problems are now exacerbated by flooding and the staggering number of people pouring in across the border.
The Upper Nile state of South Sudan, among others, is now hosting a significant influx of refugee families, including hundreds of thousands of ‘returnees’.
Those are people who fled to Sudan, generally over the last decade during South Sudan’s own conflict, only now to return as violence in Sudan spiralled out of control.


Each month, thousands of returnees and Sudanese refugees come through South Sudan’s transit centres, often spending weeks or months at a time at them before more permanent accommodation can be found.
Their stories of escape, survival, loss and the conditions in which they find themselves, are harrowing.