Returnees meeting Governor Tong Aken in Renk town. | Photo: Office of the Governor - NBGs/ Facebook

Northern Bahr el Ghazal State government said it is facilitating the transportation of at least 16,400 people stranded in the Upper Nile towns of Renk and Paloch amid a dire situation in the rainy season.

The civilians whose ancestral homes are in the state – fled Sudan where they lived as refugees – after a bitter fighting broke out in Khartoum between powerful military factions.

Information Minister William Anyuon said the state government is working with humanitarian partners to transport the returnees back to Aweil.

He further said the returnees are in a dire humanitarian situation in the border towns of Renk and Paloch at this time of the rainy season.

“We are worried that the people of Northern Bahr el Ghazal that have been displaced from Sudan, are now suffering in greater Upper Nile, especially in Renk,” Anyuon said.

“We have so far received a report of sixteen thousand four hundred forty-three returnees that are now in Renk and Paloch.”

Anyuon disclosed that the state government is working with the national Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs is working with the Releif and Rehabilitation Commission to facilitate their return.

On Friday, Governor Tong Aken Ngor visited the returnees in Renk and Paloch north of the oil-rich state to assess their situation.

“Their situation is really very bad completely,” Anyuon, who traveled with the governor, told Eye Radio.

“They do not have shelters, and you know it is raining and people are suffering indeed. It is not only the people of northern Bahr El Gazal, but the entire people of South Sudan.”

The UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says more than 100,000 people have so far crossed the border into South Sudan since the outbreak of fighting in Sudan on April 15.