UN opens repatriation corridors from Ethiopia to Sudan

March 10, 2007 (GENEVA, Switzerland) — The U.N. refugee agency says it will open two new repatriation corridors from Ethiopia to southern Sudan to help thousands of Sudanese refugees return home.

“The two new return corridors, bringing to three the total number of corridors operating from Ethiopia, will help us repatriate most of the 37,000 refugees living in Fugnido, Dimma and Yerenja camps,” said Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday.

The first two convoys are scheduled to depart on Saturday, and will bring 800 refugees from camps in western Ethiopia home to Sudan, Redmond said.

UNHCR will provide returnees with blankets, sleeping mats, a water filter and sanitary kits, said the agency’s spokesman.

During the brutal civil war in southern Sudan some 500,000 Sudanese fled to neighboring countries while another 4 million were internally displaced, said Redmond. The separate, ongoing conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region has uprooted some 2.5 million people, of whom 230,000 have fled to neighboring Chad.

Since the 2005 peace agreement in southern Sudan between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, an estimated 102,000 refugees returned to Sudan from various countries. UNHCR has aided about a 32,000 of these, said the agency’s spokesman.

Tuesday, the agency launched a $56.1 million appeal to fund this year’s repatriation and reintegration operation in Sudan, said Jennifer Pagonis, a UNHCR spokeswoman.

“In 2007, we plan to assist some 20,000 Sudanese return from Ethiopia- nearly one-third of the Sudanese refugees living in the country,” Redmond said.

(UPI)