UN begins repatriating Sudanese refugees from Kenya

Dec 18, 2005 (NAIROBI) — The United Nations repatriated scores of south Sudanese refugees from the northern refugee camps yesterday, at the start of a programme offering hundreds of thousands of war exiles a chance to go home.

With a peace deal enabling the five million Sudanese displaced abroad or internally to consider going back, UN officials say the voluntary returns could turn into one of the biggest refugee operations the world has seen.

A first group of 147 refugees from Kakuma [refugee camp] are being taken by air and road to three destinations in southern Sudan. Some 71,000 southern Sudanese refugees live in Kakuma alone.

The UNHCR says they are giving returnees basic household goods to help them survive at home, as well as two week’s worth of food to last until UN World Food Programme is able to distribute a larger supply in January.

(Capital FM radio)