Over 55,000 Southerners return to south ahead of referendum

By Bonifacio Taban Kuich

December 15, 2010 (JUBA) – The deputy representative of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Southern Sudan, Mireille Girard, Sudan told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday that over 55,000 Southern Sudanese have returned to the south ahead of the region’s independence referendum in January. The returnees have arrived through both organized by the autonomous Government of Southern Sudan programs and spontaneously to various states across the south.

Girard she said that once they arrive international NGO’s together with UNHCR are to assist them upon their arrival. UNHCR is responsible for providing temporarily accommodation at way stations for up to 72 hours, after which they are transported to their various final destination. On arrival other agencies like World Food Programme (WFP) and the southern government will provide the returnees with hummanitarian assistance including three months of rations.

UNHCR, Girard said, is providing non-food items to allow returnees to set up temporary houses when they are allocated land by the government upon their arrival. She added that oil-rich Unity state, which border shares a border with the north has seen the highest number of returns with 19,000 people arriving in the state in the last two months.

There is a continuing flow of movement from north to the South, she said. Currently awaiting transport to Western and Eastern Equatoria states at a UNHCR way station are a group who arrived by plane and by river on Tuesday, said Girard.

Many southern Sudanese fled to the north during the second north-south civil war, which began in 1983 and ended with a 2005 peace deal that granted the south the right to secede through a referendum.

Around four million people were displaced during the conflict and two million died according to UN estimates.

Disputes over post-referendum arrangements (oil, Nile water, citizenship, national debt and assets), the failure to demarcate the border and prepare for a referendum in the border region of Abyei to decide whether it will join the south have raised fears that there could be return to conflict.

On Monday the UN confirmed that the northern army had bombed areas of the southern state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal.

The southern referendum is still expected to go ahead on schedule on January 9, 2011, with most experts predicting the region will chose to secede from the north.

(ST)