Sudanese refugees urged to return home from Uganda
Mar 28, 2006 (KAMPALA) — Despite recent attacks targeting United Nations compounds in southern Sudan, the Sudanese minister of state for the interior has said the region is peaceful enough for refugees in neighbouring countries to return home.
“I am here to convey a message that there is peace in Sudan,” Brig Aleu Avieny Aleu told Sudanese refugees in Uganda on Monday, adding that the authorities would guarantee the security of the returnees. “I am the biblical dove from the Noah’s ark that went to Khartoum and returned to tell you that the floods are over. Let us go home.”
He admitted, however, that it was not yet a time of “milk and honey” in southern Sudan. “But we need all of you to participate in building the Sudan we have been fighting for,” he said. “The LRA [the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army] still exists, but not as before. They will not affect you when you go home. We shall protect you.”
Aleu was in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to sign an agreement with the Uganda government and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that sets up a legal framework for the first voluntary repatriations of Sudanese refugees in Uganda. “There is a commitment from both the government of Sudan and the government of southern Sudan that southern Sudan is no longer a place for the LRA; that Southern Sudan will not be an area to launch hostile attacks on the people of Uganda,” he said.
Thousands of Sudanese refugees who have been living in settlements in Uganda are scheduled to start repatriation in April. Moses Ali, Uganda’s deputy premier and minister in charge of refugees, said during the signing ceremony that he was worried by the security situation, citing new arrivals of more than 500 Sudanese refugees in northwestern Uganda since January. “The recent incidents in southern Sudan indicate that all is not well, especially the recent attacks on UN offices and staff in the region. There is need to make clear assessments of areas of return, to avoid repatriating refugees to unsafe areas only to come back the following day,” he said.
Ali signed for Uganda while Jean-Marie Fakhouri, UNHCR operations director for Sudan and Chad, signed for the refugee agency. Fakhouri warned that the security situation was still uncertain. “Of course there is change in the Sudan since the signing of the comprehensive agreement last year,” he said. “A government of national unity has been formed. There is a constitution. Things are moving in the right direction.
“What concerns me is the security situation in Sudan,” he said. “Where you have humanitarian workers themselves facing security problems, it is going to be very difficult for us to consider the return of refugees.” On 22 March, one person was killed and two others injured during an attack on the UNHCR camp in Yei. Three days later, the UN office in Yambio was attacked, forcing the withdrawal of staff members from the area.
“I am very hopeful that things are going to improve,” Fakhouri said. “We have given ourselves two weeks to look very seriously at the situation and to do whatever is possible together with the government of southern Sudan to see that security is on the ground and our staff can go back to their offices and refugees can come back.”
Some 60,000 refugees in neighbouring countries had agreed to go back to their homes, while 1,900 have come back from Central African Republic, he said. Some 30,000 have registered to return from Uganda, which hosts about 168,000 Sudanese refugees. However, funds for the repatriation operation were still short, as only US $10 million out of the anticipated $63 million had been secured, the UNHCR official said.
(IRIN)