More than 1,000 returnees, temporarily stranded in the city of Renk in Upper Nile State, boarded river transports at Abayok and Mina camps on Sunday, bound for Juba, capital of South Sudan.

In a statement to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, Prof Fadeit Kack, Deputy Commissioner of the Republic of South Sudan, said that the returnees will initially be shipped to Juba. After that, they will be despatched to the areas of Greater Bahr el Ghazal and Greater Equatoria, from where the majority of them originate.

South Sudanese returnees have been traveling from Sudan since 2010, prior to South Sudan’s independence, many relying on the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) contracted river transport companies to facilitate the movement. A tax dispute periodically halted many of the barges being occupied by returnees leaving a number stranded at Renk river port.

Prof Kack said that the 1,200 returnees who left on Sunday were accompanied by a medical unit for dealing with the urgent cases. There is also a supervising committee of sultans and omdas.

“Renk port still hosts thousands of South Sudanese returnees from Sudan since the start of the referendum process and during the period of the Declaration of Independence,” Prof Kack explained. “The city still receives returnees from various cities of the Sudan to assist them to return to their areas of origin in the various cities of South Sudan.”

File photo: Returnees at Renk port (IOM)

Related coverage:

Renk tax dispute with returnee transport companies resolved (11 April 2013)

Tax dispute at heart of Nile transport crisis (13 February 2013)