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30th
August 2005
First willing refugees could return to
South Sudan after rainy season, says Guterres
KAKUMA REFUGEE CAMP, Kenya, August
30 (UNHCR) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António
Guterres promised Tuesday that the first refugees will go home to
South Sudan in October, and he urged them to work with the new South
Sudanese authorities to consolidate peace in their homeland.
"You have the same rights as I do,"
Guterres told representatives of the 89,000 refugees in Kakuma camp
in north-western Kenya, "the right to a home in your homeland."
Pledging that the UN refugee agency would help
some of Kakuma's 66,000 South Sudanese refugees go home as soon
as the rainy season ends, the High Commissioner said: "I am
going to be very clear. There will not be any kind of forced return.
Return will only be voluntary. Nobody will be forced to go back.
This is the first guarantee."
On the second last day of a 10-day mission that
has already taken him to Khartoum, Darfur, Chad and South Sudan,
Guterres met representatives of Kakuma's refugees in a gathering
that opened with a minute's silence for Dr. John Garang, leader
of the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement who died in a helicopter
crash on July 30, just three weeks after being sworn in as Sudan's
vice-president.
Guterres praised Garang for not only fighting
for the rights of his people, but for also negotiating an end to
21 years of civil war between Sudan's north and south.
"The men and women who are able to fight
for their rights but who also are able to reconcile, forgive and
make peace are the wisest," he said.
He also asked South Sudanese to help Garang's
successor, Salva Kiir, to keep the peace deal on track. The international
community can help to do this and to rebuild South Sudan –
but the peace process "must be owned by the Sudanese people,"
Guterres said. "It will not be the foreigners who will solve
the problems."
Guterres met some of the 5,000 South Sudanese
who have arrived in Kakuma since the peace deal was signed in January
this year. One of them told him there is still inter-communal fighting
and militia attacks in parts of the south, and that "peace
was signed, but peace was not implemented in our hearts."
Some 100 West Sudanese refugees also arrived
in Kakuma a month ago after having walked a full nine months from
their homes in Darfur, where fighting is still going on. They said
Janjaweed militias had prevented them from crossing into Chad where
UNHCR is running 12 camps housing more than 200,000 Darfur refugees.
"This is our plea. Let us put our hands
together with the international community to bring peace to Darfur,"
a refugee told Guterres, referring to a war that broke out in February
2003 and that has displaced nearly two million people.
South Sudanese women told Guterres they were
"very worried" about losing the rights they have enjoyed
in Kakuma once they go back to South Sudan. They said they fear
being subjected to harmful cultural practices such as female genital
mutilation, forced marriage and wife inheritance.
To drive the point home, a group
of teenage girls recited a poem for the High Commissioner called
"Who Cares?" The words ran:
To my mother, I am a beast of burden
To my father, a source of income
To my brothers and cousins, a servant
To a sugar daddy, a fruit
Who Cares?
But as they also told Guterres in a song: "We are so happy.
We know everything is going to be done" because of his visit,
which ends Wednesday with talks with Kenyan government officials.
By Kitty McKinsey
In Kakuma and Nairobi
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