South Sudan wants millions of its IDPs back from North
August 17, 2010 (JUBA) — The government of Southern Sudan wants 1.5 million southerners who fled to the country’s north during the country’s long civil war to return home before a crucial referendum that could split the oil-rich south from the north.
“We’re not politicians. We’re operating on humanitarian grounds. If they come to vote for unity, we don’t care. If they come to vote for secession, we don’t care,” said the government’s director of repatriation, Arop Mathiang Amiyock.
The government would use trains, trucks and buses to return citizens to the semiautonomous south, he said, and returning families would be directed to reception centers in towns where they would be fed and sheltered for three months.
“We are looking for resources from the government and from donors. That’s why we haven’t started the project yet,” he said. “We are concerned about the resources we have to support the returnees. That’s why we are appealing to the international community.”
Southern Sudan is scheduled to hold an independence referendum in January, a condition agreed upon in a 2005 peace accord that formally ended the more than two-decade-long civil war between the country’s north and south. Preparations for the referendum are running behind schedule, and officials have warned that little time remains to complete critical tasks.
Some southerners worry that the north is too dependent on revenues generated by southern oil to let the region become independent.
Aid organizations may be wary of a project that could be interpreted as having political overtones. A large influx of people needing aid in Southern Sudan could also tax aid agencies in a region where the humanitarian situation is already precarious.
If one of the next two harvests failed, 4.3 million vulnerable people in the south already requiring food assistance would need vastly increased support, said Lise Grande, the top humanitarian official in Southern Sudan.
More than 2 million people were killed in the 23-year north-south civil war, and an estimated 4 million more were forced to flee to neighboring countries and to northern Sudan. Much of the south’s farmland is littered with land mines.
More than 2 million Sudanese refugees and people displaced within Sudan have already returned to the south. But many southerners stayed in the northern capital, Khartoum, after the war ended, either by choice or because they could not afford to return.
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Marco A. Wek
South Sudan wants millions of its IDPs back from North
While it is a wise idea to bring back the 1.5 million Southern IDPs from the North, however, my concern is knowing how corrupt our people are now adays, those poor southerners would be brought to the South and dropped like hot potatoes. The GOSS should do their best help them and at the same time give them some tools to let them help themselves. Meaning those who cuold farm can be given a land and crops and likewise, those with some experience be given jobs of their skills. They have suffered a lot in the North and they should not be let to suffer in their own home.
Adam
South Sudan wants millions of its IDPs back from North
Hey! No one will go back to the SPLM/A South. There is nothing in the South but tyranny, torture, stealing, killing, poverty, unemployment – Nothing … indeed nothing.
This gentleman is saying that the GoSS will support the returnees for 3 month. Then what? Sending them to the jungle?. The GoSS has no housing, no jobs, no schools, no hope.
People in Diaspora will not return to the South because of many reasons I stated last month. I think it is good to repeat that today.
This is really a good call. It should have been started few years back.
People in Diaspora including North Sudan should have been be attracted to return and contribute positively to the welfare of our people.
However, the GoSS needs to be convincing. The well experienced professionals all over the world are also very enlightened of the current situations in the South; politically and else wise. It is out of question that these expertise may leave their flourishing life and professions and just drop themselves and families in the midst of terror, insecurity and injustice. Where can they live? And where can they take their children to school? Are they safe when they spell their political and developmental views? Can the technology they may bring with them be operational in our prevailing pla pla situations?
Not only the highly trained professional will not come to the South in the present situation – not in decades to come, but even least skilled people will not come to the South. How can they return to the South without any guarantee of any sort, while the GoSS leaders are having their mansions and inflated bank accounts abroad and placing their children in foreign land? Let the leaders set examples first – let them get the money and families back, then many (may) come to the South, (if) progress is made in infrastructure, security, democracy, pla pla pla.
May the Lord shower His Mercy on the late J. G. De Mabior who would have behaved differently – completely different.
O Ye Southerners Unite against Tyranny and Tribalism!