SUDAN: Nothing in place yet for returnees

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MALAKAL, 18 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - A small group of around 2,000 people, displaced by a war that had lasted over two decades, arrived by river barge in the central Sudanese town of Malakal in March 2004.

They were on their way home to the Juba region in southern Sudan. While in Malakal, these internally displaced persons (IDPs) stayed on the barge under very bad sanitary conditions and received little in terms of support. When they resumed their journey four months later, three of them had died.

"This was a relatively small group that returned while the war had not officially ended, but it made it very clear that more had to be done before larger groups would start returning home," Urbano Tito Tipo, Malakal field coordinator of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN.

Now that the comprehensive peace agreement has been signed between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), millions of people are expected to return to their communities in southern Sudan.

Ter Tongyik Majok, field director in Malakal for the international NGO, ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), told IRIN that a survey they conducted among IDPs in Kosti [south of Khartoum] in June-July 2004, had found that 95 percent of those surveyed were planning to return to the region.

According to OCHA, 400,000 IDPs had already returned, largely spontaneously, to their places of origin in south Sudan by the end of 2004. However, the absence of protection mechanisms and life-sustaining services along most return routes was a major concern.

Malakal

The war between the SPLM/A and the Sudanese government in the south erupted in 1983 when the rebels took up arms against authorities based in the north to demand greater autonomy. The fighting has killed at least two million people, uprooted four million more and forced some 600,000 to flee to neighbouring countries.

Malakal is an important transit point for returning IDPs and refugees. They are expected to come up the Nile from Khartoum and Kosti, down the Sobat River from Ethiopia, while there is also a large local IDP population as a result of fighting in the Greater Upper Nile region, 25,000 of whom were in Malakal town itself.

"Although Malakal will be a focal-transit point for returning IDPs, no specific mechanisms have been put in place yet," Tipo said. "The authorities should be preparing for this, but they do not have the capacity to draw up such a plan and implement it."

The largest number of IDPs is expected to come from the shantytowns around Khartoum, where an estimated one million people live.

According to the Khartoum State Rapid Needs Assessment, undertaken by a number of relief agencies in January 2005, only 39 percent of Khartoum IDP households had a source of income, 30 percent of the IDPs had no access to latrines, 57 percent of the IDPs did not use clinics because they were too expensive, while the crude mortality rate in some settlements was close to the emergency threshold of one per 10,000 per day.

Since at least 665,000 IDPs around Khartoum had had their homes demolished as part of the government's rezoning programme, it was not surprising that the majority were planning to return to the south.

Planning for Return

At major departure points, such as the settlements around Khartoum and IDP and refugee camps, relief agencies were focusing on health and immunisation, the provision of information on the situation at return destinations and the identification of vulnerable groups of returnees.

Along the major return routes, agencies will provide food, water, primary health services, protection and emergency transportation, while at major final destination areas, the focus will be on the provision of basic services.

"Many IDPs have been away for such a long time - sometimes for decades - that they got used to the availability of clean water, electricity, education and health services," Theodore Collins, head of WFP's office in Malakal, told IRIN.

"Without providing at least some of these services in the areas of return, there will only be a relatively small group that will be willing to return - especially with the additional security threats of renewed fighting and landmines," he added.

Without the requisite infrastructure and services to sustain surges in IDP numbers, relief agencies fear that unplanned returns might also place significant pressure on the limited resources of host communities, who are recovering from decades of conflict.

In southern Sudan, according to a UNICEF Baseline report published in June 2004, 21.5 percent of children under the age of five are suffering from global acute malnutrition - the highest in the world. The primary school completion rate is two percent - the lowest in the world. Meanwhile, the life expectancy at birth is 42 years and the average number of medical doctors per 100,000 people is one.

"We try to empower the host communities by providing them with tools, seeds and fishing equipment so that they are ready to absorb the returning IDPs into their community," Adeng Anwour, team leader of the Malakal office of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), told IRIN.

"We also teach people how to provide for their own food security, in particular, those who are returning home and may not have had to do this in a long time," he added.

Funding Return

Wendy Chamberlin, acting high commissioner of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), stressed during a recent press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, that the international community had "a window of opportunity" to put infrastructure in place so that people could begin returning home - and then stay home - after the rainy season ended in September.

"The UNHCR does not encourage people to return without assistance or without information about the situation in their return-destination," she added. "UNHCR is first trying to prepare the ground in South Sudan by implementing community-based programmes in the field of water, health, education and landmine clearance."

Extreme lack of infrastructure and basic services in southern Sudan after decades of conflict meant that major investment was needed to rehabilitate communities before such returns could begin, but donations have so far fallen short of the UN's needs' assessments.

"I was shocked to find that the south has only received, in hand, five percent of what it needs to implement the [2005] Work Plan for Sudan," UN emergency coordinator, Jan Egeland, told UN Agencies and NGOs in Rumbek, during a three-day tour around the country in February.

"There is a disturbing discrepancy between what the world promised it would do once a peace agreement was signed and what it has delivered," he added.

"Of the $500 million that has been requested for recovery and development assistance in the south in 2005, only $25 million has been received and a further $25 million has been promised," Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, told IRIN.

Looking Forward

Protection is another area of major concern. People will be moving across a vast country, through areas controlled by militias. They will arrive in areas in the south with extremely limited infrastructure, the danger of landmines, and a limited police capability in the years to come to enforce the rule of law.

"It is our role as the SPLM/A to participate in the activity of helping with the return of IDPs," Anthony Edward Nwyawelo, chairman of the SPLM/A office in Malakal, told IRIN, "but a little support from the international community during the first phase is very welcome."

In addition, the large influx of returnees will require the settlement of a myriad of issues, from access to land, to competition over scarce resources and the resolution of grievances built up during decades of war.

"Security is dominating people's concern, especially with the recent escalation of militia fighting in Upper Nile," Galuak Liphoth, Deputy Secretary for Security Affairs of the SPLM/A in Malakal told IRIN.

"Let the ordinary people feel that the situation is safe by taking the arms from militias, by making sure the GoS [government of Sudan] is no longer a threat to them, and by taking care of landmines; that is the priority," he added. "Health and education will come later."

The expectation is that the majority of the returnees will arrive after September 2005, when the rainy season is over and the end of the pre-interim period will have created more stability and clarity regarding the new governance and security arrangements under the transitional government.

However, by then, the harvest season will have ended as well.

"Anybody, arriving from June 2005 onwards will need food support until August-October 2006 [when the new harvest comes in]," Tipo added.

[ENDS]