Farmers want returnees off their land in N. Bahr el Ghazal.

Residents of Aweil East County have complained that returnees’ camps are intruding on their farmland, which limited cultivation this year.

Residents of Aweil East County have complained that returnees’ camps are intruding on their farmland, which limited cultivation this year.

This report came after the Aweil mayor visited returnees’ camps at Kanajak where he met with camp leaders to hear and see their living conditions and those of residents of the areas.

One of the residents told Radio Tamazuj that they have not cultivated this year because returnees were settled on their farms by the state authorities.

He explained that they are facing similar problems as the returnees in the camps who receive some assistance from aid organizations.

Radio Tamazuj also spoke to a returnee woman Adut Garang who complained that the government has many stores full of foodstuffs but the government is not distributing them to the returnees.

Mayor of Aweil city James Arol urged his state government to reallocate the returnees to unoccupied areas in order to allow both residents and returnees to cultivate next year.

Areas around Aweil and some other towns in the state have seen rapid urbanization caused in part by influx of returnees from Sudan. Many of the newcomers fled to Sudan from villages elsewhere in the state decades ago and are reluctant to return to a rural lifestyle.