Nearly 9,000 more people have returned to southern Sudan this year: UN mission

Almost 9,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have gone back home to southern Sudan since the start of the year under the joint plan by the United Nations, the Sudanese Government and the Government in Southern Sudan to promote returns as part of the comprehensive peace agreement ending the country’s long-running civil war.

The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported today that 8,944 IDPs have returned to various locations across the south of the country, some as part of the joint plan and some as spontaneous returns to areas that are now safe and free of armed groups.

The new returns join an estimated 850,000 IDPs and 102,000 refugees who have already returned home and begun reintegrating into their former communities following the end of the north-south war in 2005.

Most of this year’s returns have headed to the southern Sudanese states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Warrab, Blue Nile and Jonglei.

Earlier this month the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched a $56 million appeal to help at least 125,000 additional southern Sudanese IDPs and refugees to return by providing them with reintegration packages and by rebuilding schools and health clinics damaged during the war.

As of last month, some 328,000 refugees from the Sudanese civil war remain in Uganda, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt.

UNHCR also estimates there are 4 million southern Sudanese IDPs, including 1.8 million living in the area around the capital, Khartoum.