USCR says returnees need funding

About 160,000 long-term Eritrean refugees are prepared to return home if the international community provides adequate repatriation and reintegration assistance, a report released on Monday by the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR) said. There were an estimated quarter of a million long-term Eritrean refugees in Sudan, 160,000 of whom were expected to return if given assistance, said the report. The return of the refugees has been delayed since 1991 by disputes between Sudan and Eritrea, the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war and disagreements between Eritrean officials and international humanitarian agencies. These impediments had now diminished and the repatriation programme should take advantage “of the diplomatic and humanitarian window of opportunity that now exists”, said the report. According to the report, opportunities for repatriation of long-term refugees are in some ways strengthened in the aftermath of the recent border war with Ethiopia, because more aid agencies are working with needy groups in the country than at any time since independence. The report urges donors to provide adequate funding and warns that “a badly run repatriation programme could leave thousands of Eritrean refugees stranded in Sudan without hope, providing fodder for further political instability”. The report calls on the Sudan government not to place obstacles in the way of the “timely return” of the refugees.