ADDIS ABABA, June 21 (Xinhua)-- South Sudan has one of the gravest refugee crises in the world with four million out of its 12 million population either internally displaced or living as refugees in neighboring countries, an UN official said Wednesday.
"2 million South Sudanese have become refugees in their own country, another 2 million have fled to neighboring countries creating one of the severest refugee crises internationally," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi said this in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
The world's newest nation South Sudan has been locked in a brutal civil war since December 2013 when clashes between forces broadly loyal to President Salva Kiir and his Ex-vice president Riek Machar turned into a full blown civil war.
The UNHCR High Commissioner will next travel to Kampala, Uganda to attend June 22-23 refugee conference with special focus on South Sudanese refugees.
Uganda currently hosts about 1.2 million refugees, about 800,000 of whom are from South Sudan.
Ethiopia currently hosts around 850,000 refugees, most of them being from South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia.
According to UNHCR June report, the world currently has 65.6 million forcibly displaced people with Colombians taking the largest number at 7.7 million people, followed by Afghans at 4.7 million and Iraqis at 4.2 million.
