Spreading Sudan violence may deepen refugee crisis, warns UN agency chief

The RSF took over Darfur's city of al-Fashir in late October in one of its biggest gains of the 2-1/2-year war with Sudan's army. This month, their advances have continued eastward into the Kordofan region and they seized an oil field and struck a kindergarten and hospital.

For now, most of some 40,000 people the United Nations says have been displaced by the latest violence in Kordofan have sought refuge within their own country, Grandi said, but that could change if violence spreads to a large city like El Obeid.

"If that were to be - not necessarily taken - but engulfed by the war, I am pretty sure we would see more exodus," said Grandi in an interview from Port Sudan.

"We have to remain...very alert in neighbouring countries in case this happens," he said.

Already, the war has prompted nearly 12 million people to flee, including 4.3 million across borders to Chad, South Sudan and elsewhere. However, some have returned to the capital Khartoum now back in Sudanese army control.

Humanitarians lack resources to help those fleeing, many of whom have been raped or bereaved by the violence, said Grandi who met with survivors who fled mass killings in al-Fashir.

"We are barely responding," said Grandi, referring to a Sudan response plan which is just a third funded due largely to Western donor cuts. UNHCR also lacks resources to relocate Sudanese refugees from an unstable area along Chad's border, he added.

Most of those who fled hundreds of kilometers to Sudan's al-Dabbah camp from al-Fashir and Kordofan which Grandi visited last week are women and children whose male companions were killed or recruited along the way, he said.

Grandi, who began with UNHCR in the 1980s in Khartoum when Sudan was hosting refugees from other African crises, is on his last trip as UNHCR chief before ending his second five-year term this month. A replacement has yet to be named from over a dozen applicants.