ADDIS ABABA
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) is expediting work on a new refugee camp in the Gambella region of Ethiopia near the border with South Sudan to which it plans to transfer tens of thousands of refugees from the nearby flood-prone Kule camp.
"We are working against time to complete the erection of tents that will accommodate 30,000 South Sudanese refugees at the new camp before the main rainy season," UNHCR Information Officer in Gambella Luiz Fernando Godinho told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.
Godinho's remarks came amid reports that rains that usually begin in the area in mid-May were already beginning to fall.
The Kule camp currently houses 42,000 refugees, its maximum capacity, according to the UNHCR official.
"We should be able to complete the setting up of the new camp near Kule by mid-May," Godinho said.
"We are now speeding up clearing work of the higher ground allotted to us by the Gambella Regional State Government," he said.
"Already last month, the number of South Sudanese refugees who entered Gambella hit the 100,000 mark," he added.
The UNHRC, in a press statement issued Tuesday in Geneva, said the number of refugees entering Ethiopia from South Sudan had sharply increased.
"In Ethiopia, the UNHCR is seeing a sharp increase in refugees fleeing South Sudan's conflict after government forces captured the rebel stronghold of Nasir in the Greater Upper Nile region over the weekend," the release said.
The number of refugees who crossed into the Ethiopian town of Burubiey – a remote community on the shores of the Baro River, which marks the border between the two countries – rose to 15,000 on Wednesday, Godinho said.
According to the release, the refugees were all ethnic Nuers, the tribe from which South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar hails, as reports speak of thousands fleeing Nasir, some 30km from the border.
South Sudan has been shaken by violence since last December, when President Salva Kiir accused Machar of trying to overthrow him.
The conflict has already claimed more than 10,000 lives, with the U.N. estimating that some one million South Sudanese have been displaced by the violence.
Following weeks of peace talks in Addis Ababa – mediated by the Intergovernmental Agency on Development, an East African trade bloc – the two sides signed a cessation of hostilities agreement in January.
They have yet to reach an agreement, however, to resolve the ongoing conflict.
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