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Some 1.5 million refugees have fled fighting and famine in South Sudan to neighboring countries, half of them to Uganda, and thousands more are leaving daily, the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday.
Political rivalry between South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar ignited a civil war in 2013 that has often followed ethnic lines.
The two signed a shaky peace deal in 2015, but fighting has continued and Machar fled in July after days of clashes between soldiers loyal to him and Kiir's forces in the capital Juba. He is now in South Africa.
Charlie Yaxley, spokesman for the UNHCR in Uganda, said the agency estimated the total number of South Sudanese who have gone to neighboring countries at 1.5 million, half in Uganda.
In December there were an estimated 600,000 South Sudanese who had arrived in Uganda, Reuters reported.
Yaxley said there were thousands of new arrivals every day. The UNHCR had planned for 300,000 this year.
Refugees arriving in Uganda often say they are fleeing from ethnic violence.
Violence has prevented many farmers from harvesting crops and the scarcity of food has been compounded by hyperinflation, triggering famine in parts of South Sudan.
The UNHCR says the refugee crisis is the world's third largest after Syria's and Afghanistan's.
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