Repatriation of Sudanese refugees underway

The United Nations refugee agency will repatriate some 4,500 Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia during the next two months, an exercise made possible by the restoration of peace in southern Sudan after two decades of civil war, officials said. Civil conflict pitting the Sudanese government and the former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) ended in January 2005, when the two parties signed a definitive peace agreement after several years of peace talks in Kenya. The SPLM is now a partner in Sudan's government of national unity and administers southern Sudan. The first group of 300 refugees from Ethiopia arrived in southern Sudan on Wednesday, after traversing 820 km in a convoy of vehicles. They had left a refugee camp near the town of Gambella in western Ethiopia on Friday, according to Fernando Protti, the deputy representative in Ethiopia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "Since Monday, 300 refugees have crossed the border to south Sudan, marking the beginning of the long-awaited repatriation of Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia," Protti said. "We are planning to repatriate 4,000 more refugees until the end of May, before the rainy season starts." He said the rainy season would make roads impassable. "In the areas where we are sending the Sudanese refugees, which is the Blue Nile region, the security conditions are still good," Protti said. "More than security problems, the speed of the repatriation from Ethiopia depends on the answer we get from our donors, because what we need right now is money to help people in Sudan." At least 14,000 refugees have expressed the desire to go home, but UNHCR needs to ensure that minimum infrastructure is in place in their villages before they return. "If there is nothing, the refugees will start going back. This will put the whole peace process there in danger," said Protti. UNHCR had received only US $1 million of the $2.8 million needed to fund the return of the 4,500 refugees. "There are two health centres, 22 water points and four schools in the area, but this is a place more or less the size of Belgium, so this it not enough," said Protti. There are an estimated 613,000 southern Sudanese refugees, and some 4.5 million people are displaced within Sudan.