UN resumes repatriation of Sudanese refugees from Uganda
Oct 27, 2006 (KAMPALA) — The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday it had resumed repatriating thousands of Sudanese refugees from Uganda, having suspended operations last week over security concerns.
Roberta Russo, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Kampala, told IRIN that 185 people were repatriated to Kajo Keji after the Ugandan and southern Sudanese government gave assurances that the dangerous security situation had been brought under control.
“We suspended [operations] because Uganda and Sudan had closed the border, but they [have] issued a statement saying the situation is currently under control so we resumed,” she said. “We have, however, not repatriated any people to the Juba areas that witnessed the ambushes, but to Kajo Keji. We decided to resume operations as the Sudan border was reopened and we got reassurance about the security situation.”
Unknown gunmen killed 41 civilians in ambushes in southern Sudan on 18-19 October. The attacks were first blamed on the Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), but were later pinned on other Sudanese armed groups.
“We repatriated 185 Sudanese using convoys from Moyo [a Ugandan border town] to Kajo Keji,” Russo said.
The ambushes strained the peace negotiations that have been going on for three months between the LRA and the Ugandan government as both sides blamed each other for the attacks.
UNHCR has repatriated 14,000 refugees to southern Sudan since the signing in January 2005 of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of war between the Sudanese government and former rebels of the Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army.
(IRIN)