UN plans to repatriate 10,000 Sudanese from Kenya in 2006
June 7, 2006 (KAKUMA, Kenya) — The United Nations refugee agency plans to repatriate 10,000 Sudanese from north west Kenya’s Refugee camp by the end of the year.
Since UNHCR began organizing voluntary repatriations from Kakuma last December, the UNHCR succeeded to help 1,300 Sudanese refugees to return home.
“It is a great thing each time a group of refugees return to south Sudan,” said Fortunata Ngonyani, UNHCR’s community services officer in Kakuma, as she watched the refugees going home. “It acts as an encouragement to others in the camp and gives them confidence in the Sudanese peace process and the voluntary repatriation programme,” she added. “It is our hope that information flowing from repatriated refugees back to Kakuma will encourage more refugees to return home”.
The voluntary repatriation is part of the planned return of more than 70,000 refugees who fled southern Sudan to Kakuma during two decades of civil war that formally ended in early 2005 with the signing of a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army.
“We started modestly with the return of 131 refugees last December, and now we hope that we will be able to help 10,000 refugees go home from Kakuma by the end of this year,” said George Okoth-Obbo, UNHCR’s representative in Kenya.
UNHCR has also begun organizing voluntary repatriations from other countries of refuge – the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia.
(ST)