THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs has pledged an allocation of €200,000 to the Irish charity GOAL to support its emergency programme in South Sudan.

GOAL is providing humanitarian assistance to the thousands of displaced persons who have fled the ongoing violence in Sudan.

The agency says that the number of refugees in the Maban region of South Sudan is expected to reach 100,000 over the coming weeks as people continue to flee unrest in neighbouring Sudan’s Blue Nile State.

GOAL says the funding will help it focus its operations on providing health support as the physical condition of people at the camp has been deteriorating rapidly in recent days.

The organisation’s chairman Pat O’Mahony said the organisation was “delighted that the Department of Foreign Affairs has responded so positively to our call for assistance.”

South Sudan officially separated from Sudan in the summer, however refugees continue to stream from the Blue Nile State of southern Sudan over the border into South Sudan.

The UN’s refugee agency says that the fear of air raids has forced many from their homes in the Blue Nile State to its camp in Doro, South Sudan but that the area was mined during the Sudanese civil war of the 1980s and 1990s. Teams from the UN and Norwegian People’s Aid are working to clear the mines.