United Nations Provides Emergency Support to Sudanese Refugees in Libya

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The United Nations has announced that the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) of the international organization has allocated 5.3 million to support Sudanese refugees in Libya.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric stated in the daily press briefing at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday that the number of Sudanese refugees in Libya has significantly increased since the conflict began in April 2023.

He added that this funding is part of a broader regional refugee response plan for the Sudan crisis coordinated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which now includes Libya and Uganda following an increase in arrivals in these countries.

With this recent expansion in the UNs response plan, the number of African countries receiving large numbers of Sudanese refugees has risen to seven.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that UNHCR expects to receive 149,000 refugees in Libya before the end of the year, and 55,000 refugees in Uganda, which does not share a direct border with Sudan.

The municipality of the city of Kufra in southeastern Libya estimates that 40,000 Sudanese refugees have arrived there, most of whom are women and children, with additional numbers in the outskirts of the city. Kufra is the only city in southern Libya close to Sudan and the main destination for Sudanese refugees.

Abdullah Suleiman, the spokesperson for the Kufra municipality, stated in a press release that local authorities rely on the number of health certificates and aid cards for their statistics.

In mid-July, Georgina Gannon, the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Libya and the Humanitarian Coordinator, visited Kufra with representatives from other UN agencies to assess the conditions and situation of the refugees in the city.