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Thousands of Sudanese refugees, some of whom have lived in Ethiopia since 1980, are to start returning to southern Sudan in two week’s time, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
Under an agreement signed by the Ethiopian and Sudanese governments and UNHCR on Monday, as many as 70,000 refugees who currently live in camps will eventually go home.
"Ten thousand should start to go back to South Sudan [from] around 15 March until the end of May," Jean-Marie Fakhouri, UNHCR director of operations for Sudan, told reporters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday.
Sudan's two-decade war between southern-based rebels and the northern Khartoum government has killed an estimated 1.5 million people and displaced more than four million others, more than half a million of whom have fled to neighbouring countries.
In January 2005, a peace deal between Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army prompted many Sudanese refugees to consider returning home.
"At least 17,000 refugees in Ethiopia have already said they wanted to be back home in south Sudan by Christmas this year," Fakhouri said, adding that a repatriation of that size would cost US $20 million.
The first Sudanese refugees arrived in Ethiopia in 1969. Successive waves followed in 1983 and in the early 1990s. Ethiopia currently hosts almost 74,000 Sudanese refugees in five camps in the western regions.
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