This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 31 March 2006, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Some 500 Sudanese refugees left the western Ethiopian camp of Bonga early this morning in the first repatriation convoy to south Sudan from Ethiopia. The convoy will travel more than 800 km and is expected to arrive in the Blue Nile region of south Sudan on Sunday.

Three more convoys are scheduled for April.

Some 79,000 south Sudanese refugees live in five camps in western Ethiopia – Bonga, Dimma, Fugnido, Sherkole and Yarenja. Most of the refugees arrived in Ethiopia in 1983 and in the 1990s as a result of the civil war in south Sudan.

UNHCR, Ethiopia and Sudan signed a tripartite agreement on Feb. 27 paving the way for the repatriation to south Sudan. There are some 358,000 south Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries, and 4 million more Sudanese displaced within their own country.

Story date: 31 March 2006
UNHCR Briefing Notes