Voluntary returnees from the Dedom Refugee Settlement in Sudan’s Darfur region who have returned to their homes in Western Bahr el Ghazal’s Raja County say they are in urgent need of shelter, food, and medicine.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Monday, a cross-section of the returnees said since they arrived, they have been facing several challenges including lack of accommodation because their homes were destroyed during the conflict.
Madelina Joseph, a returnee, said despite the relative comfort in the refugee camp in Sudan, they decided to voluntarily return home after they were informed about the improved security situation.
“After we heard of good security in Raja from our relatives, we just decided to hire a vehicle with our little money to return home because we had left our elders in Raja,” Madelina said. “But now our situation is bad because we have nowhere to stay. Our homes were destroyed during the war and we also don’t have food.”
She said that many more South Sudanese refugees in the Dedom settlement in Darfur are ready to return home if the UNHCR starts repatriation.
Another returnee who identified himself as Juma Zackaria said he returned from Darfur in April but still has nowhere to live.
“We returned from Sudan in April but now we don’t even have plastic (sheeting) or food. We returned because we left our relatives behind in Raga, the elders and we also learned of good security in Raga,” Zakaria said.
He added: “As we speak, we don’t have food, we just depend on casual labor. We go and work in gardens and buy a kilo of durra with what we get. We are suffering, we don’t have plastic sheets to make shelters, and we are calling on humanitarian organizations to intervene.”
For his part, the commissioner of Raga County, Salah Mameji Mamiri, said the returnees are in dire need of humanitarian aid.
He said since June, over 1500 people have voluntarily returned to Raja town and require shelter, blankets, clean water, plastic sheets, medicines, and food inter alia.
“The civilians who have returned to Raja from South Darfur don’t have anything. They just returned voluntarily though they were promised by the humanitarian organization to be repatriated at the end of the year,” Commissioner Mamiri said. “They have returned with nothing and no organization has offered them anything. They don’t have blankets and they are just using palm tree leaves to make up their accommodation shelters. This is the situation they are in.”
The commissioner called on humanitarian agencies to come to the aid of the returnees.
“We are calling on all humanitarian agencies operating in South Sudan in general and those operating in Western Bahr el Ghazal, in particular, to come down and help the civilians currently suffering in Raja County,” Mamiri said.
Since the conflict erupted in the country, thousands of civilians fled Raja County to neighboring countries, including Sudan and the Central Africa Republic.