Eritrean refugees group back home from Sudan
Sudan-Eritrea, Politics, 11/14/2003

On the final leg of a four-nation trip to Africa, United Nations refugee chief Ruud Lubbers yesterday led a convoy of nearly 900 Eritreans home from Sudan, some of them setting foot in their home country for the first time in 30 years.

The returnees were among hundreds of thousands of Eritreans who left their homeland for neighbouring countries as a result of Eritrea's war of independence from Ethiopia, which started in the mid-1960s, and a harsh famine in 1984-85. The Ethiopian-Eritrean border conflict in May 2000 displaced hundreds of thousands more.

Since May 2001, 103,000 Eritrean refugees have returned from Sudan, more than 50,000 of them with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Today Mr. Lubbers joined 884 Eritreans as they crossed the border from eastern Sudan into western Eritrea, at one point boarding one of the buses and shaking hands with the passengers to bid them goodbye. Many had come from Sudan's Shagarab and Wad Sharife camps, with a big group coming from further north in Port Sudan. Some said they were going home for the first time in 30 years.

The convoy took the returnees to Tesseney transit centre in western Eritrea, where they were to receive a cash grant, basic household items and a two-month supply of food from the UN World Food Programme. On their return to their home villages, mainly in the Gash-Barka region of southwestern Eritrea, they receive a further 10 months of food rations as well as land for house construction and farming.

In Eritrea, Mr. Lubbers toured returnee projects in Gerset, where returns have boosted the local population from 40 to 5,000, visiting a health centre, a women's income generation project, and two schools.

"People coming home want to rebuild the country," he said, adding that repatriation was part of the peace-building process.

Eritrea marks the end of his four-nation trip, which also included Burundi, Tanzania and Sudan.

Previous Stories:
  Sudan, Eritrea differences before the African federation   (2/8/2003)
  Eritreans in Sudan to lose refugee status   (1/1/2003)
  Former Eritrea defense minister in Khartoum for toppling Afourki; 84 persons arrested for spying to Asmara   (11/22/2002)

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