File: President Salva Kiir Mayardit/Courtesy

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

According to UN agencies, close to one million people are living in IDP and UN camps in the country.

They were displaced when violence ravaged the country following the outbreak of conflict in December 2013.

But President Kiir now says there is relative peace for the displaced people to return home.

“I want the fight to stop and those in the UNMISS camps to be removed,” Kiir told a youthful crowd during the Together for Peace Concert in Juba on Saturday.

“Tell them today that let them come out no one will kill them. First of all those in the UNMISS did not kill anyone and we will not kill anyone either.”

There are thousands of IDPs in UN-protection camps in the Upper Nile, Jonglei, and Bar El Gazal regions.

President Kiir also 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 those seeking refuge in the neighboring countries to return home.

In September, the UN refugee agency said since the signing of the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement, more than 205, thousand refugees returned to South Sudan.

This brings the total number of returnees to 326, 481 refugees since November 2017, according to UNHCR data in September.

UNHCR said the returns were organized in collaboration with the South Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.