Somali refugees could return home in 2005 - UNHCR

Somali refugees who have lived in Ethiopia for the last decade could begin returning home in 2005, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday.

Kamal Morjane, assistant UN high commissioner for refugees, said the move could begin once peace was restored in the war-ravaged region. "Refugees will go back the day they will have security, safety and dignity," Morjane told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

According to UNHCR, there are currently 116,000 refugees in Ethiopia – the majority from Sudan, with 16,000 from Somalia and 9,000 from Eritrea. Half are expected to return by June 2005, while others from southern Somalia – where peace has not yet been restored - could begin returning by December 2005.

Last year, some 29,000 Somali refugees living in eastern Ethiopia were repatriated, according to UNHCR.

Morjane also said the UN was "waiting for the moment" the Sudanese peace deal was signed between southern rebels and Khartoum to start repatriating 500,000 people from neighbouring countries. He said it could take three years before all the refugees could head home after two decades of civil war. The UNHCR, he added, was also looking at repatriating Eritrean refugees.

He said, however, that UNHCR faced an annual shortfall in financial support of about 20 percent, amounting to about US $200 million of its $1.4 billion budget.

Morjane also warned that further increases in refugees arriving in Chad from Darfur would put pressure on existing resources. "The refugees in Chad are facing very difficult conditions," he said. "We hope we will not get more refugees because of the problem of water."