Following a four-day mission to Ethiopia, a senior United Nations relief official has called for continued international attention to the plight of South Sudanese refugees, warning the number of refugees could rise substantially if fighting in South Sudan persists.

This year (2014) alone, it is estimated that over 150,000 South Sudanese refugees will flood south into northwestern Uganda (the area around Arua). This is the result of the fierce tribal and ethnic warfare going on in South Sudan. Analyses of arrival profiles show that women and children continue to represent the vast majority of the new arrivals. 

The UN is responsible for providing financial, health, and other support to the refugees, while the Uganda government is providing camp and community security.

Why won't the war stop?' South Sudan refugees in their own words

In a press release issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Ms. Kyung-wha Kang, noted that nearly 194,000 South Sudanese refugees – 90 per cent of them women and children – have arrived in Ethiopia since the conflict in South Sudan began this past December.

“Without a political solution, and with more fighting and major food security challenges in South Sudan, that number could rise to 350,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2015,” she warned.

Ms. Kang travelled to the Gambella region in western Ethiopia, where she met refugees from South Sudan in Tierkidi camp. Ethiopia currently hosts more than 600,000 refugees, the largest refugee population in Africa.

South Sudan: the impact of war and the importance of peace

Political in-fighting between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, started in mid-December 2013 and subsequently turned into a full-fledged conflict that has sent nearly 100,000 civilians fleeing to UNMISS bases around the country. The crisis has uprooted some 1.5 million people and placed more than 7 million at risk of hunger and disease.