UNHCR prepares for return of refugees

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, on a visit to Sudan, said on Tuesday his agency was making plans for the return of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees, should a peace agreement be signed as expected before the end of this year. The agency warned that the operation would be one of the "most challenging" of recent times. "Once the peace process is concluded, then the real work starts for us," Lubbers said. "UNHCR is looking at how to support the peace agreement once it is signed and is trying to ensure that we are ready to move once this has happened." Lubbers was in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on the third leg of a four-nation Africa tour that has already taken him to Tanzania and Burundi. In Khartoum, he discussed the prospects for repatriating Sudanese refugees with President Umar Hassan al-Bashir, and on Wednesday was due to travel to southern Sudan to meet Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) leader John Garang. According to a UNHCR statement, Lubbers was "closely watching" progress in the peace talks, currently in recess and due to reopen on 30 November in Naivasha, Kenya. "The last mile in the peace talks should not take too long," Lubbers said. Sudan's 20-year conflict has displaced an estimated 4 million people internally, with another 570,000 Sudanese refugees living in neighbouring states as refugees. The bulk of these refugees [about 223,000] live in Uganda, followed by Ethiopia [88,000] and Kenya [69,000m], UNHCR said. Bashir told Lubbers he was hopeful that the much-awaited peace agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLM/A would be signed before the end of the year, and would allow for the return of the millions of Sudanese displaced within and outside the country, the UNHCR statement added. Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, said on Wednesday it was "encouraging to hear that UNHCR was ready to carry out such a large task". He told IRIN that the signing of the agreement would be followed by a six-year transition period, during which both Sudanese parties were expected to "work out modalities" of the repatriation of refugees and internally displaced people. "We are supposed to sit together, the government, SPLM/A, countries hosting Sudanese refugees and partners like UNHCR, and prepare for refugees to get back home. But whether this will be finalised at the end of the interim period will remain to be seen," Dirdeiry said. UNHCR said it expected to aid the repatriation of up to 110,000 Sudanese refugees during the first year of the return operation to Sudan. It admitted that such a task would be "one of the most challenging in recent times", in view of the level of destruction and the near-total collapse of infrastructure in southern Sudan.