500 displaced Dinkas set to return home to southern Sudan from Darfur's Beliel camp

International Organization for Migration (IOM) news report 21 Apr 2006 says IOM is to organise over the next six weeks the voluntary, safe and orderly return of some 10,000 internally displaced Dinkas from three sites in South Darfur to their homes in Northern Bahr El Ghazal province. Excerpt:

A first group of some 500 displaced Dinkas is scheduled leave Beliel camp for the nearby state capital town of Nyala, where they will board an IOM chartered train on 24 April. The 100-mile journey east to El Daein will be the first leg of their long journey home. Other groups of displaced Dinkas are scheduled to leave Nyala town and the nearby Saman Al Naga camp over the coming weeks.

Upon arrival in El Daein, the returnees will overnight at a rest station before starting the second leg of their journey by bus to Samaha, where IOM has recently opened a way station to provide basic facilities such as water, sanitation, and shelter for the returning Dinkas. Health facilities are being provided by the NGO, Cordaid.

The displaced will then cross the river Kiir on board two boats chartered by the NGO Concern to arrive in Kiir Galama, a locality on the southern banks of the river. From there, the returnees will be transported by IOM to their final destinations in Northern Bahr El Ghazal province.

IOM and partners have recently provided emergency assistance to another group of some 2,300 displaced Dinkas who were stranded in Kiir Galama to help them return to their places of origin in the central highlands of Northern Bahr El Ghazal.

Note, the article tells us the Dinkas are part of a much larger group of tens of thousands of fellow tribes people who were displaced by conflict and drought in South Sudan to South Darfur 19 years ago and who were again displaced by the fighting in Darfur in 2003.

For further information, please contact: Louis Hoffmann IOM Juba Tel: +882 16433 38260 Email: lhoffmann@iom.int Anne Marie Linde IOM Khartoum Tel: +249 912 141 757 Email: amlinde@iom.int



Photo: IOM assists displaced Dinkas in Kiir Galama, Northern Bahr El Ghaszl province (Louis Hoffman/IOM 2006).

See Apr 13 2006 Difficult journey for displaced Dinkas in Darfur returning home to Sudan's Northern Bahr El Ghazal province



Photo: Doctors from the Bangladesh Contingent Medical Company treating patients from the local community. Juba, Bahr el-Jabel State, Sudan. UNMIS Photo/Arpan Munier, 21 February 2006