South Sudanese returnees reach Unity state

By Bonifacio Taban Kuich

March 16, 2012 (BENTIU) – Unity state received 1,000 South Sudanese returnees on Thursday. They came from Khartoum on barges hired by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Upon arrival the state director for South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, William Kuol Geng, welcomed them at Bentiu port, who urged them to take part nation-development with the skills they learnt in Khartoum.

“Unity state government is very pleased for your return into the new nation South Sudan,” Geng told the returnees.

He added that his government will work with UN agencies to deliver food aid assistance to the returnees in the state.

Geng urged returnees to contact other South Sudanese still residing in Khartoum to encourage them to repatriate.

The leader of the returnees, John Makuel Changath, told Sudan Tribune on Friday that they were concerned about residing in Khartoum after the 8 April deadline given to them and were happy to return after fleeing during the Sudanese civil war.

Two decades of bloody war between north and South Sudan ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a stipulation of which was the South Sudanese’s right to vote on independence. They voted overwhelmingly in favour of secession in the plebiscite which afforded South Sudan its independence in 2011, since which, thousands of South Sudanese who fled during the war have been travelling south with their families.

Changath thanked the Unity state government for financing their repatriation.

Of an estimated 500,000 South Sudanese residing in Khartoum, 25 per cent have returned.

Citizenship rights of South Sudanese living in north Sudan and vice versa, was one of the agreements achieved in talks between the nations two presidents in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

(ST)