John Dabi, the deputy head of the South Sudan Refugees Affairs Commission announced Thursday that over 600 Burundian nationals have crossed to South Sudan due to conflict in their country.
Dabi told Radio Tamazuj that the refugees were given temporary asylum certificates for six months until the security situation returns to normal in Burundi.
“Over 600 refugees from Burundi have recently arrived, they want to seek refuge here” he said. “So, we are working on their case, they are still coming, if the insecurity situation in their country continues, we will look on how they can be refugees here,” he added.
The refugee commissioner explained that the Burundian refugees are now scattered in towns, saying the commission is planning to establish refugee camps to accommodate them. He claimed that they also developed a strategy to allocate a budget in order to assist the refugees.
Dabi revealed that South Sudan accommodates 265,000 refugees from Sudan’s Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and Central African Republic as well as Democratic Republic of Congo.
The South Sudanese official indicated that this large number of refugees reflects a good image of South Sudan.
Meanwhile, Ajit Fernando, the Commission’s Assistant, called on the international community to exert more efforts to support the refugees in South Sudan despite the increasing number of refugees across the world.