IOM assists vulnerable IDPs to return home

A group of 217 internally displaced persons (IDPs), who were stranded some 40 km from the Busseri River in Western Bahr el Ghazal province in southern Sudan, have been helped to return home by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The group - mostly children, young mothers, the elderly and those with disabilities - got stranded while trying to return home, IOM officials said.

"It is an emergency operation to save people’s lives," Edwin McClain, regional representative for the IOM in Nairobi told IRIN on Thursday.

The assisted IDPs, he added, were part of a larger group of some 5,000 who left Mabia, south of the town of Tambura in Western Equatoria in mid-April.

"It is not a rescue operation for the entire group. We are only providing assistance to the most vulnerable, about 1,500 people," McClain said.

The group was planning to walk an estimated 365 km of densely forested and often hostile terrain with many rivers along the route, in order to reach their homes in Raja district in Western Bahr al Ghazal.

Over the next few days, the IOM is expected to transport the remaining members of the group and help them cross the Busseri River before the rains would render it impassable.

The IDPs would then be transported to a central site in Diem Zubier in Western Bahr El Ghazal and receive medical assistance.

"Our doctor has had 400 individual consultations with IDPs and found that they were in remarkably good condition, given their situation," McClain said. "Their morale is high and they are just happy to be returning home."

"It was a spontaneous return in the sense that international aid agencies were not involved, but the operation was organised by the Raja district commissioner," McClain noted.

He added that the group wanted to return home in advance of the official handover of the government-controlled territory to the southern Sudanese authorities, which is scheduled for 19 July.

As many were returning to their homes after a long period of absence, disputes over land were anticipated. The IDPs were eager to claim their lands before the transfer of authority.

The mission, entitled "Operation Rescue", was launched on 9 May and carried out in coordination with WFP, UNICEF, MSF Spain, and World Vision; at the request of the UN Deputy Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan.