INTERVIEW-Sudan readies to resettle refugees from southern war
By Shapi Shacinda
LUSAKA, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Sudan is preparing for the return of around half a million refugees who fled war in the south, as another conflict in the western Darfur region triggers a fresh exodus, Sudan’s refugee commissioner said on Thursday.
Mohamed Ahmed Alaghbash said plans were in place for the return of some 500,000 southern Sudanese refugees who fled mainly to neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia during the Khartoum government’s 21-year war with southern rebels.
“They will not all return at once, but the process starts in early 2005,” Alaghbash told Reuters while attending a meeting on refugee relief work in Zambia.
Government delegates and the main southern rebel group are fine-tuning a peace settlement aimed at ending Africa’s longest-running civil war.
But as hopes of peace are raised in the south, a conflict in Darfur in the west has uprooted more than a million people, with around 120,000 fleeing to neighbouring Chad.
Alaghbash said the government was drawing up a budget for the return of southern refugees and said it would appeal to the international community for financial assistance.
The massive repatriation will require investment in infrastructure such as schools, health institutions, roads, bridges and water facilities, officials say.
Alaghbash said Khartoum was in talks with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the resettlement programme.
He said refugees in Chad would return to Darfur once conflict in western Sudan had ended.
Rebels in Darfur took up arms against Sudan’s government last year. Arab militias known as Janjaweed and aligned to Khartoum have been accused of rape, murder and destroying villages in Darfur. The situation has been described by the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“The conditions in Darfur currently do not permit the return of refugees, but we will sign an agreement with Chad and the UNHCR to enable our people to return once the situation normalises,” Alaghbash said.
Refugee movements have not just been in one direction. Alaghbash said around 600,000 people from Sudan’s neighbours, including Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia, were living in Sudan as refugees.
“We have conflict in (southern) Sudan while our neighbours also either face internal conflict, drought and other natural disasters, which have forced about one million people to seek refuge in Sudan in the last 40 years,” he said.
“About 600,000 of these are still in Sudan while the rest have returned to their countries in the last few years.”