Africa-Press – South-Sudan. By Emelda Siama John
The number of people returning from refugee camps in neighboring Uganda has continued to increase day by day inPageri Payam, Magwi County, and EasternEquatoria State(EES) since last year, local authorities said.
Pageri Payam Administrator Modo Grace Sliver in a phone interview with Juba Monitor yesterday, said that, between December last year and January this year, about1, 397 people came back to their original homes in Pageri Payam.
“The returnees are coming every day in large numbers to their various places,” she said.
Ms.Sliver said that in Kerepi, one of the Bomas under Pageri Payam,they received 1,238 people last year and another 159 so far this year.
The administrator however lamented that the returnees have been met with a number of challenges including harassment from soldiers who still occupy civilian facilities and lack of relief items such as carpets, blankets as well as food items, among others.
“The people from the camps complain that if the government decided to call them back, why should the government send soldiers along the roadside,it means that the place is not yet safe, so they don’t want inconveniences in the place like before,” Grace explained.
She further stated that the presence of soldiers in homes of civilians and other social facilities such as schools was hindering the voluntary return of refugees from camps across Uganda.
She said that the inhabitants were displaced by violent government soldiers during the spread of the war to the area in 2016.
“It is very hard for them to come back because by the time they were going to the exile, it was the army who has made them to go, is not rebels, but it is government soldiers,”she said.
She appealed to the NGOs and UN agencies to support the returnees with food, and other relief items like blankets, saucepans, and carpets.
“The government is not really helping, the purpose of government is to send administrators and other officials on the ground to see that the people who have returned are safe and we are giving them the report, but the turn-up is very low, so the people are depending on charcoal selling to buy food,” she cited.
“As a government official,I am requesting them to come back because without them, the government official can’t work and the soldiers that are put on the road areto see that there’s no unknown gunman again,” she added.
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