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| UNHCR to repatriate over 500,000 Sudanese exiles
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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) -
The UN refugee agency is
preparing its biggest repatriation programme in Africa that
could see more than 500,000 refugees returning to Southern
Sudan at a cost of $60 million, UN High Commissioner for
Refugees Antonio Guterres has announced here.
"My appeal to development agencies and donors is to
concentrate their efforts in South Sudan to make this
return programme successful," Guterres said late
Monday at the end of a three-day visit to Ethiopia.
UNHCR plans to assist voluntary repatriation of the
refugees from Central African Republic, DR Congo,
Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
The first part of the exercise started last weekend
when a group of Sudanese left Kakuma camp that hosts
more than 90,000 refugees in northern Kenya.
In addition some four million internally displaced
persons, many of them around Khartoum, need assistance
to head homeward in the South.
Ethiopia hosts some 92,800 refugees from South Sudan.
Guterres said Ethiopia, Sudan and the UNHCR would next
month sign a tripartite agreement to pave the way for
the return of the refugees on a voluntary basis.
The repatriation of Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia is
planned to take off in February 2006 and it would cost
about $4 million. So far about 15,000 have registered for
voluntary
return.
According to officials at the UNHCR Africa regional
office in Addis Ababa, the return of so many uprooted
people would be a long process and complicated by the
lack of infrasructure in South Sudan.
"The return of refugees to South Sudan is the most
complex we have ever undertaken in Africa. Many areas
are mined and the refugees are coming from a range of
countries.
"Sudan is a very big country. There are very
challenging conditions to be met. That's why we need a
an informed voluntary return," said Guterres.
The whole repatriation programme, he said, would be
presented to donors who are expected to provide funds
for the reintegration and rehabilitation of the
refugees in their home society.
In the Darfur region of western Sudan, however, the
situation remains bleak until a comprehensive peace
deal is struck at the ongoing talks of the opposing
parties in Abuja, Nigeria.
"We fully support the efforts being made by the
African Union for the peace agreement to be reached in
Darfur so that people could be able to return home in
secure conditions," said Guterres.
"We urge the international community to provide the AU
with adequate means for ensuring that the peace
agreement will be effective.
"If the situation in Darfur will worsen, it will have
a very negative impact of instability in Chad, South
Sudan and the region as a whole."
Sudan today has the biggest number of internally
displaced persons and refugees in the world, put at
six million.
The repatriation and reintegration of this population
would take about three years, according to estimates
by the UNHCR.
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| Addis Ababa - 20/12/2005 |
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