Verdens nyeste nation har ikke meget at tilbyde sine hjemvendte sønner og døtre – skuffelsen er udtalt i det fattige land, som har måttet se sine olieindtægter svinde ind efter strid om betalingen med Sudan.
WAU, 21 March 2012 (IRIN): They have returned in their hundreds of thousands, by train, barge, bus and plane, often after decades of war-enforced absence; but coming home to what recently, and euphorically, became the world’s newest state, the Republic of South Sudan, is often the beginning of yet another chapter of struggle and destitution.
On one of the main roads in Wau, a railhead town held by Khartoum throughout the 1983-2005 civil war which devastated much of what was then called southern Sudan and which put two million people to flight, there is an old poster that reads: “Vote for separation to become first class citizens in your own country and say bye-bye to repression and marginalization.”
In January 2011, 98 percent of southerners complied with that injunction (opfordring) and in July a new flag was raised in the capital, Juba, as good riddance (en befriende lettelse) was finally bid to rule from distant Khartoum. Just as they had upon the 2005 signing of the comprehensive peace accord, long-absent southerners headed home in droves (store skarer).
In August 2011 a passenger train arrived in Wau from Khartoum for the first time in years; it was packed with jubilant returnees eager to enjoy the fruits of long yearned-for peace and freedom.
For one of those passengers, 42-year-old auto mechanic Charles John, these fruits have yet to ripen.
Since his arrival, he, his wife and six children have been living in a warehouse near the town’s railway station. While only a few dozen people lived in what is locally termed the “hangar” when IRIN visited in mid-March, the building would soon be jam-packed with passengers from another train that pulled into Wau a few days later.
“I decided to come back to my own country because I was a foreigner [in Khartoum] and faced discrimination. We were not welcomed; if we built a home we would be chased away after two or three years. This happened many times,” John explained.
“I was happy to come back. I expected a better life, with school for the children and a better chance of getting a job. But when I arrived, things turned out differently. I have no job, I am still in the hangar, the children are not in school and I am still waiting for my plot (jordlod). I do not know when I will get it,” he said.
Complicated plot allocation
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95122/SOUTH-SUDAN-World-s-newest-state-offers-little-for-thousands-of-returnees
