Thousands Of South Sudanese Flee To Kenya Thousands of South Sudanese are fleeing to Kenya to escape the insecurity in the nearly two-year old nation, South Sudan, the United Nations Agency for Refugees has said. 04 April 2013 By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 4 April 2013 [Gurtong] - “This is what was said by our Kenya office; 4,265 South Sudanese refugees have been registered in Kenya’s Kakuma camp since the beginning of 2013,” Tims Irwin, the UNHCR Spokesperson in South Sudan told Gurtong. According to other media reports, the refugees who have now fled to Kenya, mostly from Jonglei State are escaping both inter-tribal conflicts and rebel fight with government forces in the State. Besides refugees, many South Sudanese are also seeking better basic services; education, water, food and shelter as access to these services in the new nation are limited. Since the onset of 2013, despite national government move’s to end instability in Jonglei, the State has remained unstable. Last year, government launched a disarmament programme aimed at collecting guns from the hands of unauthorized persons to curb insecurity in the volatile state. It also launched peace and reconciliation program both targeting to achieve peace but the fruits of these efforts are yet to be realised. The situation depicts early warnings last year by the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs in South Sudan that the humanitarian situation in the country is likely to increase this year and calling for more efforts both from the governments and international community to address the situation. The UN Special Envoy to South Sudan Hilde F. Johnson last week challenged government to ensure it executes its responsibility of protecting civilians. Though the Jonglei State has the largest number of UN peace keepers deployed, Hilde said the peace keepers will only act if government has fail to play its responsibility of protecting the civilians. Nevertheless, nearly 200,000 Sudanese and Congolese refugees have also fled to South Sudan for safety. A top UNHCR official last year warned that the number of refugees taking to South Sudan is likely to hit 350,000 if civil war between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile is not stopped. Posted in: Home, Foreign Relations, Governance -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
