Gov’t asks Sudanese refugees to go home, tells South Sudanese to return  

JUBA – South Sudan’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Peter Mayen Majongdit, is asking the Sudanese refugees to return to their country and South Sudanese refugees in Sudan to return home.

The minister made the call during a three-day workshop which brought together more than 40 delegates from both Sudan and South Sudan to find a durable solution to the displacement situation in two countries in Juba on Wednesday.

According to UN agencies, about 1.6 million people are unable to return to Sudan as their areas remained insecure due to nearly two decades of conflict in Darfur region. In South Sudan, over two million people have been displaced by years of war following the outbreak of conflict in December 2013.

“The government of the Republic of South Sudan is extremely welling to work with partners, and the ministries to make sure that the Sudanese who have missed their homes for number of years even the Sudanese that were born here who wanted to see how sweet home is, they have to go and sit at that River Nile where I used to come from,” Mayen said.

The government official urged the regional bodies to support safe return of refugees homes.

“I want to register on behalf of my ministry that of course the return program of Internally Displaced Persons makes everybody to live in his home with a sense of dignity, with a sense of ownership that will make you feel that this is my country and this is my area and I belong here. That has been our first priority,” he said.

On his part, Amb. Mohammed Abdi Affey, UNHCR Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa stressed the need to seek comprehensive solutions to the displaced population of Sudan and South Sudan.

“The recent developments in these two countries are impressive and deeply encouraging. We need to buttress these successes with concrete, realistic and well-resourced plans for solutions that will contribute to the realization of the wishes for normal lives for millions displaced persons,” he said.