Sudan camp ‘struggling with Eritrean arrivals’

A refugee camp in Sudan is struggling to cope with the high number of people fleeing Eritrea each month, the UN refugee agency has told the BBC.

The Shagarab camp in eastern Sudan currently hosts more than 47,000 refugees, with an average of almost 1,000 new arrivals each month between January and June 2019, the UNHCR said.

Most of the new arrivals are from Eritrea, thought to be fleeing the country’s indefinite national service.

Last month, refugees in the camp told BBC Tigrinya that there was a shortage of basic necessities like food, water and shelter – and said they were at risk of contracting typhoid and malaria during the ongoing rainy season.

UNHCR said despite continuous efforts to improve the lives of the refugees, the limited available resources were not sufficient to respond – and new arrivals further stretched capacity.

It said it was working to solve water and shelter problems by constructing additional houses and by installing a new solar energy system.