Stranded South Sudanese returnees in Renk’s Payuar camp in Upper Nile State have expressed their outrage about what they labelled “accidental postponement” of their transportation to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, originally scheduled for next week.
The Secretary-General of the Returnees Committee in the Payuar, Gabriel Kalestro, told Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) had told the returnees that it would transport about 300 to 500 stranded returnees by barges.
He added that this corresponds with what was previously reported by Santino Padiak, the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner in Renk County.
The returnees’ representative explained that they recently were more than astonished to hear that the UN organisation had abruptly decided to transport only 84 stranded returnees.
The UNHCR promises to the stranded, as well as what was previously broadcast by Radio Tamazuj is baseless, according to Kalestro.
Since they heard they were to be transported, the stranded people dismantled their camps and bundled their belongings. Some of them as well sold their timbers. At present they are living in the open. “We have been deceived by the UN”, one of them concluded.
File photo: Returnees camp in Renk