Internally Displaced Persons in Lainya County of Central Equatoria State - Credit | Office of the County commissioner | April 2021

A church leader is urging political leaders and relevant stakeholders to create a conducive environment to attract the return of refugees and IDPs back home.

Joseph Aba Duduka, the Anglican Bishop of Liwolo Diocese in Kajo-keji West said people have been left homeless and traumatized by years of conflict.

Bishop Aba stated that civilians in Kajokeji and elsewhere have lost almost everything including their sources of livelihood.

Addressing political leaders in Juba, the religious leader stressed that ensuring the necessary steps to encourage the safe return of displaced civilians should be the priority of the government.

“People are all traumatized, people are made to be enemies of each other. We have lost virtually everything, we have lost the source of livelihood, we have lost our people who have gone to exile, Bishop Aba said.

“We have lost everything, therefore the strategy is how we raise the hope of our people because hope is number one,

“We discussed a number of issues, objectives on how do we make the coming of our people home attractive and this call all of us to make the environment conducive for everybody to come,

“One of the stumbling blocks that we discussed lengthily with the authorities is the issue of the security in the county.”

The Bishop came to Juba last week to raise concerns about the insecurity in his diocese.

For his part, Wani Jackson, a lawmaker representing Kajo-keji in the state parliament said the presence of holdout armed groups in some parts of Kajo-keji has created fear among the civilians.

“There are some areas that are contested, for example, if we are talking of our Boma of Ijio, it is still inaccessible. In parts of Kala,” Jackson said.

“People still fear returning home because of sometimes presence of cattle herders, and also because of holdout groups,” that can appear in the area once in a while,

“And three because of groups of IO that have not yet gone to the cantonment area, and that is the group of Panyume. Still, they have some soldiers who can move into the area. The rest of the other Bomas in Uholo and the other areas are now calm.”

Kajo-Keji County, which is located at the border with Uganda, was struck hard by the outbreak of civil war.

Roughly, a third of the population reportedly fled to Uganda as lives were lost and properties and livelihoods destroyed.

Some of them have returned, but many are still refugees.