Sudan's Interior Minister Khalil Pasha Sayreen speaks to the media. (Photo: SUNA).

KHARTOUM, (Eye Radio) – Sudan’s Ministry of Interior said it was coordinating with the country’s refugee commission to relocate South Sudanese refugees from Khartoum State to a camp outside the capital, Sudan News Agency reported.

The announcement is a new shift from the military government to finally designate South Sudanese citizens as refugees, after they had been leading normal lives in Khartoum alongside Sudanese citizens since the south broke away from the north.

Interior Minister Khalil Pasha Sayreen also disclosed during the regular press briefing at the Ministry of Culture and Information, on Monday, that plans were underway to deport Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees to camps in Kassala and Al-Gadarif.

“Minister of Interior Khalil Pasha Sayreen has revealed that joint coordination is underway with the Refugee Commission regarding the deportation of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees to camps in Kassala and Al-Gadarif, and the deportation and gathering of southern Sudanese refugees in a camp outside Khartoum State,” SUNA reported.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) remain locked in a deadly conflict which erupted in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, following a longstanding power struggle between military commanders Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The conflict has killed estimated tens of thousands, displaced millions and left nearly half the country’s population in extreme hunger, thus triggering the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.

Sudan used to host hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees who fled two civil wars and others that were yet to return home following independence in 2011.

However, when Sudan also descended into conflict, many of them returned from Khartoum and camps in White Nile State, Al Jazira, and Sennar States.

Data published by UN agencies IOM and UNHCR indicate that over one million people including refugees and returnees have arrived in South Sudan, having fled the conflict in Sudan. Most of the one million displaced people are South Sudanese nationals.