The South Sudanese government has allocated land to accommodate the increasing numbers of refugees who are fleeing the escalating conflict in Sudan, a senior official said.

Speaking at a press conference in Juba on Monday, Humanitarian Affairs Minister Albino Akol Atak announced that the government of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State had allocated land to establish a new refugee camp in the state.

The minister noted that they have so far registered 7,500 asylum seekers currently in Kiir- Adem who will be relocated to the new refugee camp located at Wetwil in Aweil town.

Atak said South Sudan is receiving a huge number of asylum seekers that are coming from major towns in Sudan’s Darfur region, including El-Fashir, Nyala, and El-Obeid, among other areas.

 “The area is just near Aweil town. The place is a very big area which was provided by the governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal for these refugees to be settled there,” Akol said.

He said they are now coordinating with humanitarian partners on the ground to start relocating the refugees from the reception centre in the Kiir-Adem area near the border with Sudan to the new refugee camp.

“So we have now directed our officials there, the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) and the Refugees Commission, plus our partners that are there, to relocate these people from Kiir-Adem, which is very far from the town of Aweil, to the area which was given by the governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal,” he explained.

The South Sudanese minister revealed that aid agencies are working to provide food and shelter for the asylum seekers.

According to the government official, South Sudan had received about 70,000 returnees and asylum seekers, including Sudanese, Eritreans, Ugandans, and Kenyans, among others, since April when the conflict broke out in Sudan. 

He underscored that the government will not open internally displaced camps for South Sudanese returnees but will transport them to their areas of origin.  

Since the outbreak of the fighting on 15 April, over 32,500 people have been registered crossing the border from Sudan into South Sudan, according to official reports.

The real numbers are likely to be higher as some people entered the country without registration, with the average number of people arriving daily recorded at 3,500 individuals.

Most of those arriving are South Sudanese returning home as well as Sudanese seeking asylum, Eritrean refugees, Kenyan and Somali migrants, and other third-country nationals.