Hommam Al Nassim 
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its partners on Thursday launched an appeal for $1.4 billion this year to support more than 2 million South Sudanese refugees in five African countries and host communities.
Since the conflict in South Sudan began more than 10 years ago, growing humanitarian needs, exacerbated by severe food shortages, continuing insecurity, and the impacts of climate change, have kept refugees in exile and displaced more people.
Four consecutive years of flooding have destroyed homes and livelihoods, leading to more cross-border movements.
UNHCR said South Sudan remained Africa’s biggest refugee crisis. While the war in neighbouring Sudan has forced nearly 200,000 South Sudanese to move to safe areas within the country and forced hundreds of thousands more to return home prematurely, more than two million people across the region remain in need of international protection.
The South Sudan Regional Refugee Response Plan will meet the needs of 2.3 million citizens living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. A similar number of people in communities in the five countries will benefit from services and support.
UNHCR’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region, Mamadou Diane Balde, said: “Despite the significant strides and commendable efforts of partners over the past ten years, this year’s Regional Refugee Response Plan builds on gradual progress and makes clear that if resources are made available, humanitarian assistance will be accompanied by investment in resilience – for both refugees and the host communities that have welcomed them – which in turn will facilitate long-term solutions.”
The American ambassador to the United Nations calls for an end to the war in Sudan