The violence in Sudan is likely to drive more than 1 million refugees out of the country by October, a United Nations refugee spokesman said on Tuesday.
Since the fighting began in mid-April, more than 560,000 Sudanese have escaped to neighboring countries, mostly aiming to get to Egypt.
“We expect, unfortunately, looking at the trends, that the conflict will continue and that many in Sudan will opt to [go to] Egypt,” Raouf Mazou, assistant secretary general at the UN High Commission for Refugees, said at a news conference in Geneva.
The violence has been most acute in the capital, Khartoum, and in the western Darfur region, and most of those who escaped fled east into neighboring Chad. Mazou said that colleagues in Chad had reported that they were expecting some 245,000 refugees to have arrived from Sudan by October, six months after the start of the conflict.
The war is being fought between the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. So far, more than 3,000 people have been killed, while some 2.5 million people have been displaced, according to the UN.
Meanwhile, the two warring sides have each declared a unilateral cease-fire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins this evening and runs until tomorrow evening.
Burhan announced the cease-fire in a televised speech, at the same time saying the country was facing “existential threats” and calling on “all the young men and [anyone else] who can defend not to hesitate to play this role, either from where he lives or by joining the armed forces.”
Dagalo also declared a cease-fire for the holiday, adding “except for self-defense situations.”
There have been at least nine cease-fires since the conflict erupted, all of which have foundered. Peace negations mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia in the Saudi coastal town of Jeddah broke down and were formally adjourned last week, with both mediators publicly criticizing the army and the RSF for continually violating truces.