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The number of South Sudan refugees fleeing the country’s civil war has hit the two million mark, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the office, which stated that about half of the refugees were now in neighbouring Uganda, added that
“a deepening food crisis, exacerbated by increasing insecurity, poor rainfall and widespread crop failure made people to flee parts of the country in large numbers in August.

“Many refugees also fled to Sudan and Ethiopia.”

Oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, escalated in late 2013, spiralling into violence that was partially motivated by ethnicity.

On Saturday, the government announced that it would hold elections in May 2018, the first since independence.

However, the UN warned that the country should hold on until the ongoing hunger crisis and civil war was addressed.