Den massive strøm af sudanesere, der vender tilbage til Syd Sudan efter, at folkeafstemningen gav et overvældende flertal for en løsrivelse fra Sudan, har betydet, at mangelen på mad er blevet væsentligt forværret.
By Mugume Davis Rwakaringi, AfricaNews
JUBA, SUDAN, 2 February 2011: Relief agencies are warning the situation could deteriorate unless some precautions are put in place.
One of the major challenges is the influx of many returnees who had sought refuge in other parts of Sudan during the about a decade period of political turmoil in South Sudan.
Experts warn this influx [of returnees] is expected to cause dire shortages of food, water, health care and sanitation in Southern Sudan. The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Georg Charpentier says even when the referendum results are announced, the number of returnees could keep increasing.
Over 500.000 returnees are now expected to come adding on the already numbers who have recently returned.
“The emotions around the referendum have pushed many Southerners to come back and some of them even perhaps from a rational point of view may be prematurely. May be they would have stayed longer in the North to keep their children in School or to keep a job or to have a more time to sell their properties and . That emotional aspect might eventually lower a little bit after the referendum results are out”, Charpentier warned in an address to the press when he visited the returnees at their temporally shelter at Port Juba.
Some of the returnees have suffered attacks from the militias who waylay them as they came to Sudan but The UN Humanitarian Coordinator says security has to be beefed if the safety of returnees is to be achieved.
“I believe that if we do indeed step-up the security; military or police escorting of the convoys through those routes, we will indeed guarantee that safety”, says Charpentier.
Relief agencies have warned that the influx of returnees to Southern Sudan could lead to 2,7 million people food insecure in Southern Sudan. Many of these returnees did not participate in the last concluded referendum.
The Government of Southern Sudan discouraged many Southerners living in the North from registering for the referendum citing what they expected could malpractices if they voted from the North.
