UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, says finding solutions based on peace and development were crucial for the future of the nearly seven million forcibly displaced people from Sudan and South Sudan.
“Returning home is one solution but it is not the only one. If someone chooses to remain displaced, the initiative must ensure they can do so with dignity and sense of belonging,” the High Commissioner said after a three-day visit to the two countries.
During the trip, Grandi met Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and South Sudan’s President Sylva Kiir, at which they discussed how the two countries could work together to help their displaced populations.
The UN correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that after the governments of Sudan and South Sudan signed the Revitalised Peace Agreement in 2018, close to 300,000 South Sudanese refugees spontaneously returned, with over one million more displaced inside the country also going back to their homes.
In June, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Nicholas Haysom, warned that pervasive insecurity – in particular intercommunal violence – continued to obstruct the realisation of a durable and sustainable peace in South Sudan.
Haysom, who also heads the UN Mission in South Sudan, known as UNMISS said pervasive insecurity continued to obstruct the peace in the country, nearly three years after.
According to him, many of the requirements of the Revitalised Agreement had not been met.
Grandi urged continued support for the initiative, which aims to find lasting solutions for refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), returnees and host communities, through reform, political transformation, security, development and national reconciliation.
“This initiative is a unique opportunity to place the respective governments and displaced people at the center of planning for the future, and so, it will require concerted efforts to ensure their sustained stability and security,” he said.
(NAN)