Over 7,000 returnees face food crisis in Raja County

Over 7,000 returnees who came from Sudan to Raja County are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, the county commissioner has said.

Salah Momiji Mamiri said the most affected are women, children, and the elderly, who do not have food, clean drinking water, medicine, and shelter.

 He said they have registered at least 120 households each in Raja town and Boromedina Payam, and over 6,000 others in Kafiagenje Payam with continuous daily arrivals.

“I appeal to humanitarian organisations to assist the returnees. They lack everything for survival and county authorities have no capacity to assist them at the moment,” said Mr Mamiri.

Speaking on the phone to The City Review on Monday, the commissioner said the returnees’ arrival overwhelms the existing healthcare conditions in the county, which means the county needs to urgently respond to the outbreak of diseases.

“The hospital has no medicine at the moment and that is why I am appealing to the national government and NGOs in South Sudan to supply us with medicines, there is only three medical personnel, and we need more because the population is increasing daily,” said Mr Mamiri.  

He said the majority of refugees in Sudan who fled Raja County some years back because of war have expressed a willingness to return ahead of the rain season to prepare land for cultivation but lack means of transport.

“The refugees in Sudan are calling on the national government and international Transition for Migration (IOM) from South Sudan and Sudan to bring them home so that they can start the rainy season,” he said.

“There is peace in the country, and these people have the right to come back, and if they are willing to voluntarily come home we need to assist them. We call on the national government to heed to their call and coordinate with IOM to transport them back home,” said Mamiri.

Despite the numerous challenges in the country,  South Sudan has also become home to refugees from neighbouring countries. An estimated 300, 000 refugees are being hosted in the country, as well as millions of South Sudanese refugees living in  Uganda, DR Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and the Central African Republic.

There were 786, 524 South Sudanese registered refugees in neighbouring Sudan as of September 2021, most of whom fled Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and the Unity States.