Morobo County returnese undergo head counts to received humanitarian Assistance/ photo credit Doru Sky

The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission Coordinator in Morobo County of Central Equatoria state says around 45,000 refugees returned to the area last year alone.

Most of the civilians return from the neighboring Uganda, where they fled to during the 2016 conflict.

The RRC Coordinator, Timothy Arike said the returnees have embarked on rebuilding their lives.

“These days, we are recording them [returnees] sometimes in one day we have more than 50 or 60 people, those who are coming from Kaya,” Arike said.

“For those who came before, whom we registered, we have 7,455, with population of 45,140 which we registered before, this is in 2022. For 2023, we are still collecting the numbers and we shall submit the report on 27 of January.”

Mr. Arike further said that those who returned are yet to receive humanitarian assistance.

“In my area here, this assistance doesn’t reach on the ground. It is only the recent one which we saw the non-food items that were sent by IOM and implemented by NRRC. The first thing on the ground is the IDPs, and partners used to help them, but for the returnees recently since we begin to record them, no any assistance that came from outside to the returnees.”

Uganda hosts the biggest number of South Sudanese refugees in the region.

The country provide refuge to at one million South Sudanese people, the vast majority of whom are women and children. They have fled three years of brutal civil war and the severe hunger crisis it has triggered.

President Kiir on several occasions called on refugees in Uganda, Kenya, and Congo to return home, saying “no one wants to kill anyone, after all, this country belongs to all of us.”

Kiir also called on people still living inside the internally displaced person’s camps to return to their homes.