In Chad, the number of refugees who fled to escape the fighting that has been raging for more than a month between the forces of the two rival generals in Sudan is “increasing rapidly”, now reaching around 90,000, the Organization’s High Commissioner said yesterday Monday United Nations for Refugees.

Just three days earlier, the UN estimated it was 76,000.

“Right now, we think we are close to 90,000,” Rauf Mazou, a top UNHCR official, told the press in Djamena.

The United Nations estimates that at least 1,000 people have been killed and more than a million others have either been internally displaced or turned into refugees since the war broke out on April 15.

Mr Mazou referred to “over 250,000 people who have left Sudan” and fled to neighboring countries to date.

In Chad, where they are crammed into makeshift camps in the eastern part of the country, near the border of the two states, an area covered by desert, “more than 90%” of the refugees are women and children, he clarified after a four-day visit to the country.

The UNHCR is concerned that “the rainy season will soon begin”, which will raise “additional obstacles in terms of the distribution of aid” to these people.

“We congratulate Chad for showing solidarity”, but the country “cannot handle the situation alone”, underlined Mr. Mazou. “We appeal to the international community to share the burden with Sudan’s neighboring countries and provide urgent assistance,” he insisted.

In total, Chad currently hosts 700,000 refugees, UNHCR estimates.

On May 17, the United Nations and its partners appealed for $3 billion in funds to help millions of people in Sudan and the hundreds of thousands of people who have become refugees in neighboring countries.

More than $470 million is needed to provide “assistance to refugees, returnees and host communities in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan.”