ADDIS ABABA: More than 25,000 people have crossed into Ethiopia amid the ongoing security situations in neighboring Sudan, according to the latest figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Ethiopia’s Metema border crossing point in the Amgara region is said to have received the largest number of refugees who are crossing into Ethiopia.
“With hundreds of daily arrivals from Sudan in the past couple of weeks, Ethiopia’s Metema border crossing point has now registered over 20,400 people, mostly Ethiopian returnees,” OCHA said in its flash update on the impact of the situation in Sudan on Ethiopia as of May 15.
OCHA said its partner has reported further influx of people into the country through the border town of Almahal in Guba Woreda of Metekel Zone in Benishangul Gumuz Region, between April 24 and May 11.
Arrivals in Almahal have reached more than 5,300 people as of 12 May. This is now the fourth border point with crossings from Sudan following Metema, Kurmuk, and Pakag/ Bubieyr towns in Amhara, Benishangul Gumuz, and Gambella regions respectively, and the second crossing point in Benishangul Gumuz, it said.
People who have crossed from Sudan to Metema. Credit: OCHA Ethiopia/Mengistu Dargie