The U.N. refugee agency warned Tuesday of “further displacement” of people from Sudan after thousands streamed into neighboring Chad and South Sudan despite a tenuous cease-fire between the two warring Sudanese generals battling for control of the country. The fighting has plunged Sudan into chaos, pushing the already heavily aid-dependent African nation to the brink of collapse. Before the clashes, the U.N. estimated that a third of Sudan's population — or about 16 million people — needed assistance, a figure that is likely to increase . Since the outbreak of the fighting on April 15, at least 20,000 Sudanese have fled into Chad and some 4,000 South Sudanese refugees — who had been living in Sudan — have returned to their home country, UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarrado said Tuesday. Also Read: Fitful start to new 3-day truce in Sudan; airlifts continue The figures could rise, she cautioned. Sarrado did not have figures for the five other countries neighboring Sudan, but UNHCR has cited unspecified numbers of those fleeing Sudan arriving in Egypt. “The fighting looks set to trigger further displacement both within and outside the country,” she said, speaking at a U.N. briefing in Geneva. The UNHCR was scaling up its operations, she said, even as foreign governments have raced to evacuate their embassy staff and citizens from Sudan. Many Sudanese have desperately sought ways to escape the chaos, fearing late their all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed. Also Read: Why Sudan's conflict matters to the rest of the world Several previous cease-fires have failed, although intermittent lulls during the weekend’s major Muslim holiday allowed for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners by air and land. More than 800,000 South Sudanese refugees live in Sudan, a quarter of them in the capital of Khartoum, where they are directly affected by the fighting. Overall, Sudan hosts 1.1 million refugees, according to the UNHCR. There are also more than 3 million internally displaced persons, mostly in Darfur, a region mired in decades-long conflict, it said. Along with the refugees, the U.N. migration agency said there are 300,000 registered migrants, as well as tens of thousands of unregistered migrants in the country. Marie-Helene Verney, the UNHCR's chief in South Sudan, said from its capital of Juba that “the planning figure that we have for the most likely scenario is 125,000 returns of South Sudanese refugees into South Sudan, and 45,000 refugees,” Sudanese fleeing the fighting. Also Read: Which countries are evacuating citizens from Sudan? The U.N. Population Fund has said that the fighting threatens tens of thousands of pregnant women, including 24,000 women expected to give birth in the coming weeks. For 219,000 pregnant women across the country it is too dangerous to venture outside their homes to seek urgent care in hospitals and clinics amid the clashes, the agency said. Dozens of hospitals have shuttered in Khartoum and elsewhere across the country due to the fighting, and dwindling medical and fuel supplies according to the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate. “If the violence does not stop, there is a danger that the health system will collapse,” the U.N. agency warned last Friday. The International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed the announced cease-fire as a “potential lifesaver for civilians” trapped in their homes in fighting-hit areas. “It’s clear that this ceasefire must be implemented up and down the chain of command and that it must hold for it to give a real respite to civilians suffering from the fighting,” said Patrick Youssef, ICRC’s regional director for Africa. He called on the international community to help find a “durable political solution to end the bloodshed.” Spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said it has been forced to “reduce our footprint” because of the fighting. and he pointed to “acute shortages of food, water, medicines and fuel and limited communications and electricity” and new reports of looting of humanitarian warehouses and aid stockpiles. “The humanitarian needs in Sudan were already at record levels before this recent eruption of fighting … some 15.8 million people — that’s about a third of the population — required humanitarian assistance,” he said. “This (fighting) coming on top of it, is, I would say, more than just a slap in the face. It’s more than a fist in the face of those people who were already in need,” Laerke added, echoing the calls for "the fighting to stop.” Other aid agencies, including the World Food Program, were forced to suspend or scale down its operations in Sudan following attacks on aid workers and humanitarian compounds and warehouses. At least five aid workers, three from the WFP, were killed since April 15. The WFP has said its offices and warehouses in Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur, were attacked and looted last week. An ICRC office in Nyala was also looted, and warehouses for the Sudanese Red Crescent in Khartoum were attacked last week by armed men who took several of their vehicles and trucks, the charity said. Arshad Malik with Save the Children Sudan urged the warring sides to ensure protection for humanitarian workers to allow resumption of aid flow in Sudan, which was “already going through its worst-ever humanitarian emergency” before fighting erupted. “Now we’re seeing more children than ever going hungry. About 12% of the country’s 22 million children are going without enough food,” he said.

It was early one morning when life under Russian occupation became too much for Volodymyr Zhdanov: Rocket fire aimed at Ukrainian forces struck near his home in the city of Kherson, terrifying one of his two children. His 8-year-old daughter “ran in panic to the basement. It was 2 o’clock in the morning and (she) was really scared,” said Zhdanov, who later fled the city on the Black Sea and has been living in Kyiv, the capital, for the past three weeks. Kherson, located north of the Crimean Peninsula that was annexed by Moscow in 2014, was the first city to fall after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. The port remains at the heart of the conflict and Ukraine’s efforts to preserve its vital access to the sea. For Russia, Kherson is a key point along the land corridor from its border to the peninsula. Zhdanov and others who made the hazardous journey to escape from the region describe increasingly grim conditions there, part of a heavy-handed effort by Russia to establish permanent control. The streets in the city, which had a prewar population of about 300,000, are mostly deserted. Rumors swirl about acts of armed resistance and the sudden disappearance of officials who refuse to cooperate with the Russian authorities. Occupation forces patrol in markets to warn those trying to use the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, in transactions. Pro-Moscow officials have been installed in local and regional governments, as well as on the police force. Workers at various municipal services face pressure to cooperate with Russian managers. Most schools have closed. Supplies of essential goods are uneven, halting most commercial activity. There are shortages of medicines and spikes in the price of other commodities. Many residents had been determined to hold out as long as possible for a promised Ukrainian counterattack that hasn’t materialized. “There was physical danger in the city, because there were many soldiers,” Zhdanov said. A referendum on the region becoming a part of Russia has been announced by Moscow-installed officials, although no date has been set. Meanwhile, officials are pressuring those remaining to take Russian citizenship. Income from Zhdanov’s family flower business dried up after the currency change, although he kept growing plants anyway. “It’s difficult to survive with no money and no food,” he said. “Who would want a Russian government if your life, business, and kids’ education are taken away from you? They’ve all gone.” When he left Kherson with his family, Zhdanov risked arrest by hiding a Ukrainian flag in the bottom of his pack. He had kept the flag from a public protest of the Russian troop presence. Read: Russia takes small cities, aims to widen east Ukraine battle Journalist Yevhenia Virlych also stayed for five months and kept working, writing about officials who had allegedly cooperated with the Russians. But she worked while in hiding and feared for her safety, frequently changing apartments and posting photos of Poland on social media to give the impression she had already fled. “They have tied a knot around Kherson and it’s getting tighter,” Virlych said, adding that locals are being pressured to accept Russian passports. “Russia, which came under the banner of liberation, but came to torture and take us captive. How can anyone live that way?” Last month, Virlych finally fled to Kyiv with her husband. Those wanting to leave Kherson must pass a series of Russian military checkpoints. Soldiers search belongings, identity papers and mobile phones, with anyone suspected of supporting the resistance facing interrogation at so-called filtration camps. As Kherson sinks into poverty, it’s getting harder to leave. A bus ticket to Zaporizhzhia, a city 300 kilometers (185 miles) to the northeast, now costs the equivalent of $160. Before the war, it was $10. Virlych said she admired the bravery of those who are staying behind as well as of those who risked their lives to join anti-Russian protests in the early stages of the occupation. She recalled a major demonstration on March 5 attended by more than 7,000 people. “In all my life, I’ve never seen people take such action,” she said. By April, the protests had stopped as occupying troops began responding to them with lethal force, Virlych added, saying, “The Russians were opening fire (at crowds) and people were getting wounded.” Moscow wants to maintain its hold on Kherson, which is strategically located near the North Crimean Canal that provides water to the Russian-occupied peninsula. Ukraine had shut down the canal after the annexation eight years ago, but the Russians reopened it after they took control of the region. Like Zhdanov, Virlych is still holding out hope for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to wrest the region away from Russia.   “I believe only in God and the Ukrainian armed forces,” she said. “I no longer have faith in anything else.”

It was messy and hectic in Aisha al-Abed’s kitchen, as the first day of Ramadan often is. Food had to be on the table at precisely 7:07 p.m. when the sun sets and the daylong fast ends. What is traditionally a jovial celebration of the start of the Muslim holy month around a hearty meal was muted and dispirited for her small Syrian refugee family. As the 21-year-old mother of two worked, with her toddler daughter in tow, reminders of life’s hardships were everywhere: In the makeshift kitchen, where she crouched on the ground to chop cucumbers next to a single-burner gas stove. In their home: a tent with a concrete floor and wooden walls covered in a tarp. And, definitely, in their iftar meal -- rice, lentil soup, french fries and a yogurt-cucumber dip; her sister sent over a little chicken and fish. “This is going to be a very difficult Ramadan,” al-Abed said. “This should be a better meal ... After a day’s fast, one needs more nutrition for the body. Of course, I feel defeated.” Ramadan, which began Tuesday, comes as Syrian refugees’ life of displacement has gotten even harder amid their host country Lebanon’s economic woes. The struggle can be more pronounced during the holy month, when fasting is typically followed by festive feasting to fill empty stomachs. “High prices are killing people,” said Raed Mattar, al-Abed’s 24-year-old husband. “We may fast all day and then break our fast on only an onion,” he said, using an Arabic proverb usually meant to convey disappointment after long patience. Lebanon, home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, is reeling from an economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and a massive explosion that destroyed parts of the capital last August. Citing the impact of the compounded crises, a U.N. study said the proportion of Syrian refugee families living under the extreme poverty line — the equivalent of roughly $25 a month per person by current black market rates — swelled to 89% in 2020, compared to 55% the previous year. Also read: Lebanon looks to China as US, Arabs refuse to help More people resorted to reducing the size or number of meals, it said. Half the Syrian refugee families surveyed suffer from food insecurity, up from 28% at the same time in 2019, it said. Refugees are not alone in their pain. The economic turmoil, which is the culmination of years of corruption and mismanagement, has squeezed the Lebanese, plunging 55% of the country’s 5 million people into poverty and shuttering businesses. As jobs became scarce, Mattar said more Lebanese competed for the low-paying construction and plumbing jobs previously left largely for foreign workers like himself. Wages lost their value as the local currency, fixed to the dollar for decades, collapsed. Mattar went from making the equivalent of more than $13 a day to less than $2, roughly the price of a kilo and a half (about 3 pounds) of non-subsidized sugar. “People are kind and are helping, but the situation has become disastrous,” he said. “The Lebanese themselves can’t live. Imagine how we are managing.” Nerves are fraying. Mattar was among hundreds displaced from an informal camp last year after a group of Lebanese set it on fire following a fight between a Syrian and a Lebanese. It was the fifth displacement for al-Abed’s young family, bouncing mainly between informal settlements in northern Lebanon. They had to move twice after that, once when a Lebanese landowner doubled the rent, telling Mattar he can afford it since he gets aid as a refugee. Their current tent is in Bhannine. This year, Syrians marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the uprising-turned-civil war in their country. Many refugees say they cannot return because their homes were destroyed or they fear retribution, either for being considered opposition or for evading military conscription, like Mattar. He and al-Abed each fled Syria in 2011 and met in Lebanon. Even before Ramadan started, Rahaf al-Saghir, another Syrian in Lebanon, fretted over what her family’s iftar would look like. Also read: Hundreds take part in funeral of man killed in Lebanon riots “I don’t know what to do,” said the recently widowed mother of three daughters. “The girls keep saying they crave meat, they crave chicken, biscuits and fruit.” As the family’s options dwindled, her daughters’ questions became more heart wrenching. Why can’t we have chips like the neighbors’ kids? Why don’t we drink milk to grow up like they say on television? Al-Saghir recalled breaking into tears when her youngest asked her what the strawberry she was seeing on television tasted like. She later bought her some, using U.N. assistance money, she said. For Ramadan, al-Saghir was determined to stop her daughters from seeing photos of other people’s iftar meals. “I don’t want them to compare themselves to others,” she said. “When you are fasting in Ramadan, you crave a lot of things.” The start of Ramadan, the first since al-Saghir’s husband died, brought tears. Her oldest daughters were used to their father waking them for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal before the day’s fast, which he’d prepare. A few months before he died — of cardiac arrest — the family moved into a one-bedroom apartment shared with a relative’s family. This year, their first iftar was simple — french fries, soup and fattoush salad. Al-Saghir wanted chicken but decided it was too expensive. Before violence uprooted them from Syria, Ramadan felt festive. Al-Saghir would cook and exchange visits with family and neighbors, gathering around scrumptious savory and sweet dishes. “Now, there’s no family, no neighbors and no sweets,” she said. “Ramadan feels like any other day. We may even feel more sorrow.” Amid her struggles, she turns to her faith. “I keep praying to God,” she said. “May our prayers in Ramadan be answered and may our situation change. ... May a new path open for us.”