Eritrea is considered one of the most repressive countries in the world; Freedom House, in its annual ranking of countries based on democratic freedom, considers Eritrea “one of the worst of the worst”. Since gaining independence from Ethiopia twenty years ago, the destitute and politically isolated country is often accused by international human rights groups of unlawful executions, tor-ture, and citizen detention.

WHO: Valerie Amos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

WHAT: Mission to Sudan

WHEN: 20 to 23 May 2013

WHERE: Khartoum & Darfur

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, is scheduled to visit Sudan from 20 to 23 May.

KHARTOUM (16 May.) - In its latest report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirms that more than 300,000 people have been forcibly displaced in Darfur since the beginning of this year. It attributes the displacement to inter-tribal fighting and conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and armed rebel movements.

The US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice noted that more than five times as many people have been displaced in the first few months of 2013 than in the whole of the previous year.

Watch the video

At the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan, where the population has increased five-fold in the past year, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is treating growing numbers of patients and preparing for the additional hardships that will come with the approaching rainy season.

Food security levels are generally better than a year earlier in East Africa and the Sahel, with most areas facing either IPC phase 1 ‘minimal’ or phase 2 ‘stressed’ conditions, thanks to favorable agro-climatic conditions in 2012.

KALMA CAMP (15 May.) - Camps for displaced persons near Nyala in South Darfur are in dire need of tarpaulins and tents with the approaching rainy season. The existing equipment is worn, broken, and offers inadequate protection “even from light rain”.

Hussein Abu Sharati, spokesman for the association of displaced persons and refugees of Darfur, told Radio Dabanga that thousands of displaced people are living in the open, while the rain has already started in Darfur. On 5 May he said that a total of 41,441 families have arrived at Kalma since the beginning of March.