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June 20, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) – Tens of thousands of
South Sudanese refugees have returned to Sudan since the signing of a
north-south peace agreement ended more than two decades of civil war in
2005.
Some of them celebrated World Refugee Day in the South
Sudan capital of Juba together with the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees (UNHCR) head Antonio Guterres on Wednesday.
Anyuak Youth at World Refugee Day
celebrations in Juba on Wednesday. A handful of returnees were
present at the event as well as Ethiopian refugees who have been
in the South since they fled in 2003 following the Gambella
massacre.
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The agency is planning to have brought back 102,000
refugees to the South by the end of 2007 in time for census and elections
in the following year. Guterres said on Tuesday that funds had been
diverted from other operations in order to reach this goal.
But Oman Onyongo who was also at the celebrations wants
to go the other way, for him ‘back home’ is towards Ethiopia.
He and his wife ran away from the oil-rich Gambella
region of Ethiopia in 2003 following the infamous massacre there where the
Human Rights Watch (HRW) agency say some 400 members of his Anyuak
community were killed by the Ethiopian military. This killing was followed
by further deaths and the destruction of some 1,000 homes say the HRW.
Onyango and his wife have become two of the little
known 1,178 confirmed registered Ethiopian refugees in South Sudan,
although the UNHCR estimate another 6,800 are living close to the border
between the two.
“We came by foot, walking across the bush, for three months in the
rains,” says Onyongo who now lives with some 430 other Anuak Ethiopians
in the capital of Juba.
The wilds of the south at that time were also
battlefields and while making their escape the Ethiopians were arrested
under suspicion of being rebel southerners by government officials says
Onyongo.
Onyongo indicates a group of southerners kicking up
clouds of dust around stamping feet, dancing in celebration of World
Refugee Day to the beat of a large cow skin drum.
“These people are coming home to their motherland
because they have peace, but how can I return?” he asked.
He says he is afraid that when he returns he and his
wife will again be attacked.
In the meantime the Ethiopian refugees have been
struggling to survive in Juba were they have witnessed a massive growth of
population and increased pressure on resources.
Authorities have said that their children cannot take
advantage of the new Government of Southern Sudan’s free education
policy.
But other struggles faced by Onyongo now echo those
that Sudanese refugees coming back to the South have to deal with.
“To cope up with the life here is difficult,” said
Eunice Olga who came back to the South in January, “it is so expensive,
and in Juba the lack of accommodation is also a problem”.
She has left her children behind so that they can carry
on with their education. Olga, who has been back to visit her original
home in Eastern Equatoria says that her community are facing problems with
a lack of water and healthcare access.
Although Guterres said on Tuesday he had come to the
South to celebrate one of the most successful refugee return operations in
the world, Onyongo said he came to the party at the Juba way station to
celebrate World Refugee Day as one of those who are still ‘away’.
“This is our day as refugees, we have to participate
here too,” he said.
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