ADRA

ADRA Eases the Journey Home for Thousands in Sudan

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

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 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.