IOM begins airlift to take South Sudan’s citizens home

January 27, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – An airlift of 12 flights aimed at carrying nearly 400 people stranded in Sudan’s capital Khartoum to their homeland in South Sudan began on Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has announced.

IOM, which conducts the airlift, announced in a press release on Thursday that the operation, which will help 165 people with 226 family members and escorts to return home, is scheduled to run for a week.

Millions of South Sudanese who lived in Sudan had to return home in droves since their region seceded from Sudan on 9 July 2012 in line with a plebiscite on independence. The vote was promised under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil wars between the Muslim-ruled north and the mainly Christian South.

But, according to UN estimates, there are 700,000 southern Sudanese still living in north Sudan.

IOM said that the returnees will be met on arrival by its South Sudanese staff and will be helped to reach their final destination

“They include elderly and disabled people, pregnant women and people with serious medical conditions. Nine unaccompanied minors, identified by UNICEF, will also travel with the group to be reunited with their families in South Sudan” IOM’s release said.

Sudan has decided to strip southerners of their citizenship and set April as a deadline for southerners to return home or else face treatment as foreigners.

(ST)