More Sudanese refugees to return home to south – UN
Dec 12, 2006 (GENEVA) — The United Nations said on Tuesday that 20,000 Sudanese refugees would begin returning home this week to southern Sudan from Ethiopia and Central African Republic, as its post-war repatriation operation expands.
The voluntary return programmes from the two countries had been suspended after the Central African Republic closed its border with Sudan last April and the rainy season made roads impassable from Ethiopia last May.
“With the resumption of convoys from the two countries, we expect to assist the return of nearly 20,000 Sudanese refugees from both countries over the next six months,” Jennifer Pagonis, spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told a news briefing.
More than 91,000 Sudanese refugees have returned home from exile mainly in Kenya and Uganda following the January 2005 peace agreement which ended a 21-year civil war in the south — Africa’s longest that killed about 2 million people. The UNHCR’s repatriation programme began almost exactly a year ago.
An estimated 350,000 Sudanese refugees remain abroad, mainly in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it said.
On Wednesday, a convoy of 10 buses is due to transport the first group of 500 Sudanese refugees on a four-day journey from Bonga refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia to their villages in Sudan’s Blue Nile State, Pagonis said.
A return operation is expected to begin on Saturday from the Central African Republic, which has agreed to open the border only for the repatriation of Sudanese refugees, according to the U.N. agency.
(Reuters)