ADRA Eases the journey home for thousands in Sudan

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

by Anne Woodworth, assistant director, bureau of planning, ADRA International

The staging area at Kosti wharf in White Nile State where returnees wait—sometimes for weeks—to board barges traveling to the south of Sudan.

After more than 20 years of civil war, the government of Sudan in Khartoum and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement in the south signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005. The peace agreement gave the 36 million Sudanese people a great deal of hope that the more than four million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 358,000 refugees 1 who have moved away from their homes because of the unrest and violence.

Approximately two million IDPs are now living in Khartoum, the national capital, with two million more spread across the northern regions, including 110,000 IDPs living in Kosti, White Nile State. Another 95,000 have settled in Malakal, Upper Nile State, and upwards of 360,000 refugees have sought shelter in countries bordering Sudan.

2 The peace agreement nurtured the hope that the IDPs and refugees could return to their areas of origin across the southern region. With the recent formation of Government of National Unity as well as the autonomous Government of Southern Sudan based in Juba, the hope for a peaceful Sudan continues to grow.

Returnees, traveling with everything they own, ride on a passenger barge along the Nile River. The journey home can take up to a month.

Although precise figures are not available, more than one million people returned to their areas of origin in the period from January 2004 to June 2006. During the first half of 2006, an estimated 150,000 IDPs and refugees returned to Southern Sudan, with another 200,000 making their way to Southern Kordofan, Abyei, and Blue Nile. 3

Since 2004, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) International has worked with IDPs and refugees in Sudan. ADRA maintains field offices in Kosti, White Nile State; Malakal, Upper Nile State; Juba and Terekeka, Bahr El Jebel State; and Bor, Jonglei State. The field offices are currently implementing the Returnees Support Program, which provides food and non-food assistance to displaced people from Khartoum and other northern states trying to return to their homes in the south. Moreover, the program helps returnees to reintegrate within destination communities and alleviate the potential for conflict arising over competition for scarce resources and services. Many of the returnees are not well informed about the conditions they will be returning to, and have little or nothing to take with them to help them survive upon arrival. Under the Returnees Support Program, ADRA Sudan will continue to provide blankets, plastic sheeting, mosquito netting, food and other supplies returnees will need during their journeys home, which can take up to two months.

Internally displaced women attend ADRA’s adult literacy classes at the IDP camp in Kosti.

Other agencies are partnering with ADRA to meet the returnees as they arrive at the Kosti wharf—along the Nile River—and provide for their basic needs such as shelter, clean water, showers, and toilet facilities. Organized recreational activities help entertain the children during the sometimes weeks-long wait at the wharf, and throughout the boat journey itself. As returnees disembark in various destination points along the Nile, ADRA distributes food to help them get settled. In communities that receive large numbers of returnees, ADRA also provides healthcare, water, and sanitation services for residents.

1 UNHCR March 2006 (refugees), OCHA January 2006 (IDPs).
2 Figures provided by IOM (IDPs) and UNHCR (refugees).
3 2007 Work Plan for Sudan, Returns and Reintegration Working Group.

CIA Map of Sudan

Internally displaced women attend ADRA’s adult literacy classes at the IDP camp in Kosti.