The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Tuesday that more than one million people have returned to Sudan’s war-ravaged capital Khartoum in the past 10 months, while basic services remain severely limited and infrastructure damaged.

The organization reported that there are continuing disease outbreaks, damaged homes and shattered infrastructure, all of which create dangerous conditions for returnees. Experts also said that thousands remain victim to indiscriminate shelling, sexual violence and ethnically targeted attacks.

“The scale of return to Khartoum is both a sign of resilience and a warning. I met people coming back to a city still scarred by conflict, where homes are damaged and basic services are barely functioning,” Ugochi Daniels, IOM deputy director general for operations, stated.

The IOM stressed that the number of returnees only represents about a quarter of those originally displaced by the conflict and that Khartoum continues to host over 3.7 million displaced people.

“We and our partners continue to scale up our response efforts where access allows,” Farhan Haq, UN deputy spokesperson, said.

The report comes months after a senior UN official voiced concern that approximately 30 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance as the civil war persists in Sudan. It also follows the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemnation of the killing and injuring of scores of civilians in El Fasher. Days ago, the UN called upon international bodies to address the deepening crisis in South Sudan. The Sudanese civil war began in April 2023.