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South Sudan Refugees Pressure Aid Efforts In Other East African Countries

South Sudan Refugees Pressure Aid Efforts In Other East African Countries

A seven-month ethnic conflict in South Sudan between President Salva Kiir’s Dinka people and his former deputy’s, Riek Machar, Nuer people has pushed more than a million people out of their hokes as the refugees flee escalating violence that has already killed thousands.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese  have taken shelter in camps provided by aid agencies such as the MSF and the United Nations in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. But now the camps are swelling to over capacity and conditions there have taken a turn for the worst, according to a recent report by Doctors Without Borders.

Zaipi camp in northern Uganda was designed to shelter only 3,000 people — but over the past two months those numbers have swelled to as many as 20,000 people. Daily influx of new refugees has put pressure on humanitarian efforts to provide proper assistance. Many South Sudanese, according to MSF, have been driven out of their surrounding villages not only for security reasons, but in search of food.