Refugees International in its latest report-Return to a Displaced Nation: The Sudan Crisis and South Sudan’s Returnees has called on United States (U.S) and other donor countries to immediately increase funding for the emergency response to the Sudan Crisis in South Sudan, particularly considering the urgent situation in Renk, as well as for the preexisting Humanitarian Response Plan.
They should closely monitor to ensure humanitarian assistance is responsibly provided and reaches those in need. They should also Engage the government of South Sudan at the highest diplomatic levels toward implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement, the report demanded.
The government of South Sudan, the report recommended should revise its de facto no camp policy to allow for more robust and long-term provision of services to the transit center for returnees sheltering in Renk and in other areas along the Sudan–South Sudan border.
This should include increased food, health, and protection services (including gender-based violence and psycho-social support), and more durable shelter materials and sanitation facilities (including latrines).
Furthermore, the report authored by Daniel P. Sullivan and Abdullahi Halakhe urgently called for the establishment and implementation of a comprehensive repatriation plan, in conjunction with UN agencies and local governments and organizations that is informed by past efforts and guidance.
“The plan should include emergency aid near the border, security and conflict sensitivity assessments, transportation facilitation, livelihood and shelter support kits for returnees, community integration services, engagement and information sharing with returnees, along with sub-transit sites and longer-term development projects where possible”.
UN agencies should urgently put in place a permanent Humanitarian Coordinator and empower the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to improve collection and sharing of basic information on numbers of new arrivals, intended destinations, and needs assessments.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) should work with the government of South Sudan to develop and implement a comprehensive repatriation plan prioritizing and sequencing immediate life-saving aid alongside preparations for a more sustainable plan involving movement to and development of areas of return.
This should include engagement with the World Bank and other international financial institutions, informed by conflict sensitivity assessments, to support livelihood opportunities and disaster reduction projects to mitigate flooding in areas of return.
The fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) starting in mid-April 2023 has caused a regional humanitarian crisis.
In South Sudan, the return of large numbers of South Sudanese – who had fled earlier violence in their own country – is causing what is in effect a mass, uncoordinated, and unplanned spontaneous repatriation movement.
Yet, the response has not been fit for purpose, is woefully underfunded, and remains overly focused on onward movements from transit centers near the border. A modified repatriation plan is needed, one that draws on past lessons to better balance provision of emergency aid with mitigation of risks and long-term development of areas of return.
The violence in Sudan has displaced more than 3 million people, including 2.2 million inside the country and more than 700,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries. More than 170,000 people have now crossed into South Sudan, which was already facing some of the highest levels of displacement and humanitarian need in the world.
The vast majority of new arrivals from Sudan into South Sudan are South Sudanese refugees returning to their homeland. This means that they have not faced the same barriers to entry experienced by many Sudanese refugees in countries like Chad, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
But, once across the border, most of these returnees lack the means to travel onwards to their communities of origin. In addition, these communities continue to suffer from conflict and flooding, and property disputes are rife. As a result, many of these areas remain unsafe for return and, after years away, many South Sudanese lack a clear home to which they can return.
The combination of ongoing conflict in Sudan, the onset of the rainy season, and insufficient practical options for onward transport and return to communities of origin means that many returnees will remain in transit centers near the border, and the number of new arrivals will grow.
The conditions in and around the main transit center in Renk are dire, and urgent action is needed to save lives. As Refugees International witnessed, many new arrivals lack even plastic sheets to shelter from torrential rainfalls marking the start of the rainy season. People are resorting to open defecation for lack of latrines.
Communicable diseases like measles are already spreading, and at the time of the Refugees International team’s visit, at least four children had already died as a result. Aid workers are already reporting spikes in gender-based violence (GBV). International and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are at the forefront of responding, but face grossly limited resources.
People returning to South Sudan must not be abandoned to such conditions. The government and international donors must urgently step up the resources for adequate services, including increased food and basic medical care, protection and support for women and girls, and more durable shelters and latrines.
To date, the government of South Sudan, with the agreement of UN agencies, has focused almost exclusively on moving people onward to areas of origin, seeking to avoid the establishment of long-term camps by transporting tens of thousands by plane and barge.
Such onward movements will be a key part of any solution to the current challenges near the border – but they must be safe, voluntary, and supported – and these immediate returns cannot be the only approach. An overreliance on such efforts at the expense of more robust services is putting lives at immediate risk.
What is needed is a modified repatriation plan. While the scale and rapid onset of the returns will make some best practices unworkable in the near term, many others – including better information sharing, interim shelter and livelihood assistance, and conflict sensitivity awareness – could go a long way to improving the current response.
For its part, the government of South Sudan must implement the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (Revitalized Peace Agreement), including the chapter dedicated to humanitarian issues. One of the visions of the agreement was to create the conditions in which South Sudan’s displaced people could finally return home in peace. The crisis in Sudan has accelerated that return in less-than-ideal conditions. No more time can be wasted as hundreds of thousands more potential returnees wait in the wings.
Background
The history of South Sudan, both before and after independence in 2011, has been characterized by cycles of displacement and return. The international community and the nascent authorities of pre-independence South Sudan mounted a major multi-year repatriation and internal return process following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.
From 2005–2008, 1.7 million people returned to communities of origin in South Sudan, with extensive support from international aid groups. Following independence in 2011, internal conflict in South Sudan exploded in late 2013 and persisted for several years.
A peace agreement signed in 2018 has quelled outright clashes at the national level, but sporadic localized fighting, often tied to national rivalries, continues in many parts of the country.
The result of this history has been a protracted displacement and humanitarian crisis with 2.2 million internally displaced people and 2.3 million refugees living in surrounding countries and three-quarters of the population in need of humanitarian assistance.
Control of territory is often contested between different ethnic groups, and large-scale returns have historically held the potential to disrupt local balances of power – a major consideration in the planning and execution of safe and peaceful returns in the pre-independence period.
This dynamic is particularly crucial today, with implementation of key pieces of the agreement stalled, including the formation of a single army and adoption of a constitution. Elections initially planned for 2023 have been postponed to 2024.
A chapter of the agreement dedicated to humanitarian issues, including planning for returns of South Sudanese refugees from abroad, has seen hardly any progress. Abrupt and poorly coordinated returns could further complicate the already weak implementation of the 2018 peace agreement.
Humanitarian challenges in South Sudan have been further exacerbated by climate shocks that have led to historic flooding in areas like Unity and Upper Nile states, as well as droughts, particularly in the southeast. Governance challenges combined with the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and cuts in development aid have led to an economic downturn.
On April 15, 2023, fighting between the SAF and the rival paramilitary RSF in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum quickly escalated and spread to several parts of the country.
The fighting has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilians, leading to thousands of deaths and the displacement of 3 million people, exacerbating an already challenging humanitarian situation in Sudan and across the region. Multiple ceasefire agreements brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia have failed to hold, and there is little prospect that the fighting will end in the near term.
Fighting in Sudan has made the humanitarian situation in South Sudan even worse. The cut off of trade supply routes from Sudan to South Sudan has increased the prices of basic commodities as much as 60 percent.
New localized ethnic-based tensions have already sprung up in Renk and Malakal in Upper Nile state and threaten to reignite a long history of broader ethnic-based fighting. As returnees reach new areas, whether in their former home villages or cities like Malakal and Juba, the strain on already stretched basic services will grow. The added strains will do little to help stalled peace implementation move forward.
Since the outbreak of fighting in Sudan, tens of thousands of South Sudanese have returned to South Sudan along with thousands of Sudanese refugees fleeing their country.
The UN estimates that three-quarters of them have crossed in through Renk County in Upper Nile state, mostly arriving after perilous journeys fleeing attacks in Khartoum.
As one recent returnee described to Refugees International, “They don’t just attack the barracks. They engulf civilians as well…What brought us here is war.” Most of the remainder have crossed into Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal states from Darfur.
Read the report: https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports-briefs/return-to-a-displaced-nation-the-sudan-crisis-and-south-sudans-returnees/
