Refugee repatriation target this year at least 60,000

Between 60,000 and 90,000 camp-based refugees in northern Sudan are due be repatriated by the end of 2002, and a further maximum of 62,000 in 2003, the UN refugee agency confirmed on Tuesday.

The decision follows a meeting of the Tripartite Repatriation Commission held on 25 and 26 March in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.

This programme would complete the repatriation of a working figure of 160,000 refugees living in camps in Sudan, a spokeswoman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told IRIN on Wednesday.

She said those who had fled in the recently ended Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict had already been repatriated; the new repatriations planned for 2002-'03 were from the "older caseload", some of whom had been living in Sudan since as long ago as 1967.

The refugees are currently based in 23 camps in the regions of Kassala, Showar and Port Sudan in eastern Sudan. The repatriation programme, which began in May 2001, involves registering the refugees and then transporting them by truck to a reception centre in Teseney, western Eritrea, and then on to their homes.

Approximately 90 percent of the refugee returnees would be going back to the Gash Barka region in the west of the country, the spokeswoman added. Each person is to receive a repatriation package including blankets, kitchen sets, soap, jerry cans, agricultural tools and a small cash grant.

The tripartite meeting signified the resolve of the Sudanese and Eritrean governments, together with UNHCR, to "close out the longest-lasting, large-scale refugee situation in Africa on the basis of internationally accepted norms and principles, through the most durable solution - that is, voluntary repatriation", according to a joint statement issued on 26 March.

This Eritrean repatriation was "an unfolding success story that must not be truncated," said Wairimu Karago, UNHCR's regional director for East and the Horn of Africa. "There are still many more Eritrean refugees who are waiting to return home, and we must help them to exercise their choice," he added.

The Commission also agreed that the question of large numbers of refugees in Sudan residing outside camps would be taken up at the next meeting, due to take place before the end of the year. UNHCR was unable to confirm the numbers involved.

The Eritrean and Sudanese government, and UNHCR, concluded an agreement in April 2000 on "the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees in the Sudan and their reintegration in Eritrea".