Over 6,000 Sudanese refugees in Uganda to be repatriated

Aug 26, 2005 (Kampala) — Over 6,000 Sudanese refugees in Uganda are to be repatriated by the end of 2005, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced here on Friday.

Snezana Sazdic, official with the UN agency told journalists at the UNHCR office in Kampala that many Sudanese refugees in Uganda have expressed interest of going back home but still have some fears.

She said some of the refugees have raised issues of lack of infrastructure and medical facilities in southern Sudan.

Sazdic said that UNHCR needs 70 million US dollars to repatriate these refugees, adding that some donor countries and private donors have expressed interest to pay over 50 percent of the requirement.

Meanwhile, Sazdic revealed that there are over 18,000 Sudanese refugees who have recently fled to Uganda.

She explained that these new arrivals are fleeing southern Sudan giving reasons of lack of security among other issues.

Currently, there are over 188,000 Sudanese refugees in Uganda. The Sudanese refugees take the biggest percentage of the 230,000 refugees in Uganda. Other refugees in the east African country are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and others.