UN ready to repatriate half-a-million Sudan refugees once peace deal signed

KHARTOUM, Nov 12 (AFP) — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Wednesday that his agency was ready to start repatriating some 570,000 registered refugees from Sudan as soon as a peace deal is signed between Khartoum and southern rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

“We have longstanding good relations with the Sudan with regards to refugees present in the country and operations for their voluntary repatriation and now we are going to work on repatriation of Sudanese refugees back home now that peace is coming,” agency chief Ruud Lubbers told a press conference here.

Lubbers said he was visiting Sudan as “a total country” to discuss his agency’s plans for the refugees, “most of them from the south of the Sudan.”

“Probably many of them will want to return to Sudan and so UNHCR has already prepared to do that and we want to consult on our plans with the government in Khartoum and with those who are responsible in the south,” he said.

“Today I went down to the south to see (SPLA leader John) Garang and yesterday I spoke to the government officials, particularly the president (Omar al-Beshir),” said Lubbers.

“All told me that peace is now irreversible and definitely will come and so we have to start the process of informing the refugees in neighbouring countries on the situation in an impartial manner.”

The UNHCR chief said he focussed in his conversation with Garang on “our own plans and he agreed to the concept of defining areas of return where UNHCR will have full presence and we will work together with his people.”

Lubbers said his agency was also prepared to take care of internally displaced people if they came from the north to returnees’ centres and registered themselves as refugees.

The operation was a collective effort in which the warring parties, UN agencies and key donors like the European Union should take part, Lubbers said, adding: “It is not only repatriation … it is reintegration, rehabilitation and reconstruction.”

He said they would depend on international donors to finance the operation.

Lubbers said he would visit the central towns of Kassala and Gedaref on Thursday to tour refugee camps there and in the afternoon would continue on to neighbouring Eritrea, which has a large Sudanese refugee population and displaced people of its own in Sudan.