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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 17.07.2008 |
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| FEATURE: A Plot to Settle Down |
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LWF Sudan Program Supports Returnees’ Resettlement
IKOTOS, South Sudan/GENEVA, 17 July 2008 (LWI) - Four dusty four-wheel- drive trucks packed with people and their belongings pull up at the “Freedom Square” open place in the small remote town of Ikotos, South Sudan. In the compound opposite, a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Department for World Service (DWS) water drilling team is busy setting up a fresh water supply system.
These are new arrivals of the first organized repatriation to Ikotos at the foot of the mountains that separate South Sudan and Uganda. There is no official reception committee but relatives and former neighbors from years or even decades back are mixing with curious children and teenagers.
Although some Southerners returned soon after the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and South, it was 2007 and 2008 that have marked the highest numbers of Sudanese returnees. Some organized their own travel without assistance from refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda, and many more came from within Sudan. Numbering hundreds of thousands, they are all returnees, although some are labeled as refugees and others as IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons).
Some 3-4 million Southern Sudanese were displaced during the war started in the 1980s between the Khartoum government and armed groups in the South seeking the region’s political and economic autonomy from the North. Exact figures are hard to get but the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that it had assisted the repatriation of 24,000 refugees by April 2008.
For the group of 16 newly arrived families—some 90 people—it is the end of a five-day-long journey from a refugee camp in Northern Uganda, and the beginning of a new life at home. “I feel really good to be back home,” says Margaret Abou, 45, accompanied by her husband and six children. “I have seen others going back, and now we are finally here. I left 25 years ago,” she remarks.
She met her husband Mario Jamo Abou in the refugee camp in Uganda and they married there. They now have five children and a grandchild as they return to Ikotos.
“We want to believe there is real peace now,” says Margaret, anxiously scanning the dusty field for relatives or anyone she might recognize. The couple’s immediate plan is to find a plot and settle down, hopefully near a school.
Most of the returnee families are assisted by locals, but the Abous are still unsure where to spend the first night. Although the expected contact person has not turned up, eventually things work out and someone offers accommodation and something to eat for the night. It is definitely going to be many more nights before the local government commission can allocate them plots to build houses. Their old land is gone, taken over by others during the two-decade-long civil war.
LWF Support
The UN provides basic food items for the initial period, while the LWF South Sudan program distributes non-food items like blankets, mosquito nets, laundry soap, jerry cans and hoes.
At the outskirts of Ikotos, John Lokanyum, 21, is busy constructing the traditional tukul house for himself, his brother and sister-in-law. He left in 1999 and returned on his own voluntarily in January 2008 from Kyradongo camp in Uganda.
“I was eager to get back and did not want to wait for the organized repatriation. I longed to see my mother after such a long time,” says Lokanyum with a smile. “She was displaced around here in the mountains but is back here in Ikotos. She has a new family and I now have three new sisters and brothers,” he summarizes the changes over the years.
The only assistance Lokanyum has received since he came back is a piece of land. He and a cousin Dominique, also a returnee, have been helping each other with the tukul construction, but they say they require some tools and farming implements as the rains are approaching.
Godfrey Anyanzo, LWF/DWS Sudan relief coordinator at Ikotos has good news for John:Up to 4,000 families in the locality will receive seeds and tools through support from Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS). Dominique and the families who returned from Uganda will be among the ALWS-supported returnees.
Pressure on Basic Services
Summing up the challenge of working in South Sudan, LWF representative Dr Messeret Lejebo underlines the need for good and improved coordination with the Government of South Sudan, the UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, churches and the civil society in Sudan. “It is hardly a matter of re-construction as the table in South Sudan is virtually empty after several decades of war,” he notes
He especially points to the increasing pressure on scarce basic services within the host communities, with the daily arrival of hundreds, sometimes thousands of returnees. “We have witnessed communities expressing concern about current tensions and the potential for conflict arising over the lack of basic social services such as schools for returning children, water, basic health facilities, and non-food items such as farm tools, mosquito nets and jerry cans,” he adds.
LWF/DWS assisted part of South Sudan from mid 1970s to mid 1980s out of the program office in Malakal. Following decades of humanitarian aid, as well as refugee work in neighboring Kenya and Uganda, a Sudan program was re-started in November 2007. The current program is based in Torit, the regional capital of Eastern Equatoria. (902 words)
More about LWF/DWS Sudan at: www.lwfkenyasudan.org
A contribution by Tore Samuelsson, DWS program officer for Eastern Africa.
*Photos available: Helen.Putsman@lutheranworld.org
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