UN: Sudanese fleeing to Uganda despite peace

KAMPALA, Uganda, June 16, 2005 (AP) — Sudanese refugees have started fleeing into Uganda to escape ethnic tensions, starvation and conscription into a former rebel group, a U.N. refugee agency official said Thursday.

Southern Sudanese women sit outside their huts near the town of Rumbek. (AFP).

Since a southern Sudan peace deal was signed in December, more than 8,000 Sudanese have crossed the border into Uganda, said Rebecca Russo, adding that it may be more difficult than expected to persuade 187,000 Sudanese already in Uganda to return home.

The refugees complained that ethnic tensions were on the rise, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was forcing young men to join their ranks, that food aid had been cut off to some areas and that a Ugandan rebel group was also attacking Sudanese civilians, Russo said.

The refugee agency had planned to repatriate 187,000 Sudanese beginning in August, since a peace agreement between the government and the rebels ended two decades of war in Sudan’s southern region. Since 1983, more than 2 million people have died and hundreds of thousands have been scattered in neighboring states.