DanChurchAid
Sudan
Returning to nothing
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| DanChurchAid supports returned refugees as well as residents in getting a bearable life. In the village Payuel in the state Jonglei seed grains and agricultural instruments are distributed, so that the families may produce their own food and become independent of emergency aid. |
Violent fights between the government army and militia on the one side and rebel groups on the other have ravaged the country for 21 years.
Awful militia attacks on villages and numerous bomb attacks have smashed the scarce infrastructure which existed.
Around four million people have fled across the borders. After several years of international pressure a peace settlement has finally been agreed upon.
Thousands of refugees are now returning home and the need for schools, roads and health clinics is huge, but the only things left by the war are landmines and destroyed buildings.
Weapons are still present everywhere, and the peace settlement is far from being assured.
Hoping for a better life
This is the situation in South Sudan, where around 250,000 refugees have returned home since the peace settlement between North Sudan and South Sudan was signed in 2005.
In the Kakuma camp in Kenya hundreds of people are waiting in the dispatching centre.
Rolled-up tin roofs, suitcases, mattresses and sacks with food lie piled up, one on top of the other.
Tong Dut James sits with his family in the shadow. The former soldier arrived at the camp ten years ago. He has received training and is now a qualified teacher.
”I hope that my family may get a better life in South Sudan and that I may find as good a job as here, where I am principal,” he says.
The family consisting of five persons will return to Tong’s home town Aweil.
”I do not know what it will like to live there, but I do know how to get there. It is my native country and I want to contribute developing it,” he says.
In need of food, water and shelter
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| The friends Daruka and Arok would like to continue going to school once they return to South Sudan, but possibilities are scarce for the eldest pupils, though progress is made establishing schools for the youngest pupils. In 2005, 350,000 children started school in South Sudan. In the school year 2006/07 1,3 million children started school. |
The two friends Daruka and Arok also look forward to going home even though they do not remember much from Sudan.
They are returning to the state Jonglei, where DanChurchAid works on a food project supported by the EU.
The state was the rebels’ stronghold and was severely hit during the war.
It is among the least developed and only accessible for five months a year due to floods.
In the village Payuel in Duk county there is shortage of water as well as food, and they have problems with cattle stealing in the area.
And there are no shelters to the many people returning.
”The people who are returning stay with relatives, but they do not have extra space. Often six to seven people sleep in one room,” the local administrator Mayen Manyok Arok says.
There is no activity in the village apart from the children playing in ragged and dirty clothes.
”Our life is not good. We cannot procure food ourselves. We just await food from the emergency relief organisations,” says Achol Manyok, who returned to the village last year.
Achol hopes to get hold of some seed grains so she may cultivate the soil. Right now her family gets only one meal a day.
Sudan
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