40,000 Sudanese have fled to Libya due to war

Some 40,000 Sudanese have fled the fighting in their country and moved to the Libyan city of Kufra, the eastern-based Libyan parliament has said.

Minister of Health, Othman Abdel Jalil, visited displaced Sudanese citizens in Kufra yesterday and said: “We estimated the number of Sudanese who were displaced to Kufra at approximately 40,000 people.”

“It is difficult to know the exact number of these displaced people due to the continuing waves of people coming from Sudan. Discovering the actual number requires census teams in the field.”

“We have tasked medical teams to conduct examinations and tests for the displaced to diagnose their conditions and provide them with health care. We will provide treatment and medical supplies to all patients, especially those with serious or contagious diseases,” he noted.

Abdul Jalil welcomed “our brothers from Sudan to their second country, Libya.”

Since mid-April 2023, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been engaged in a war that has left about 13,900 people dead and displaced more than 8.5 million Sudanese, according to the UN, making it one of the biggest displacement crises since World War II.

Mediation efforts have not succeeded in ending the war, which has entered its second year, leaving the country in a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

READ: UN calls for collective action on humanitarian crisis in Sudan