JUBA, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan is hosting 613,710 refugees and asylum-seekers across 164,574 households in 29 locations nationwide as of January, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the total figure includes 610,268 registered refugees and 3,442 asylum-seekers.
"The vast majority, 94 percent or 576,672 individuals, are Sudanese refugees, followed by 14,677 or 2 percent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6,599 from Ethiopia, 5,605 from the Central African Republic, 5,165 from Eritrea, and 1,550 from other nationalities," the UNHCR said in its latest report released in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
It said the South Sudanese government continues to grant prima facie refugee status to those fleeing Sudan in response to the ongoing conflict.
According to the UNHCR, 49 percent of the refugee population are females aged 0-59, while women and children combined account for 75 percent of the total.
The agency said Ethiopians and Eritreans each account for 37 percent of the total, forming the two largest groups of asylum seeker population, followed by Burundians with 9 percent, Ugandans with 7 percent, and 9 percent other nationalities.
South Sudan remains at the center of one of the region's largest displacement crises, with more than 2.3 million South Sudanese living as refugees in the DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan, the UNHCR said. ■