Mary Venerato Laki, South Sudan returnee: "We want to go to our own
homeland"
RENK-UPPER NILE STATE, 6 May 2013 (IRIN) - Years ago, Mary Venerato Laki
fled conflict in South Sudan, moving north to Sudan, where she worked as a
teacher for 42 years. But after a January 2011 referendum paved the way for
South Sudan's independence, Mary, now a 60-year-old widow and sole guardian
of four nieces, decided to move back home.
To prevent the family's savings from being stolen by officials, she
converted their money into material goods, which she transported as luggage
to South Sudan's border port of Renk.
That was over a year ago.
Since then, Laki has been living in a squalid transit camp in Renk County,
along with
<
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97981/The-long-road-home-to-South-Sudan>
20,000 other returnees - some of whom have been waiting there for two years.
Without the means to transport their luggage onward, they are faced with the
difficult choice of remaining in Renk or selling off all that remains of
their families' assets to proceed to their final destination.
Laki, like many, has been waiting with her possessions in Renk. She told
IRIN her story.
"I am 60 years old, and I come originally from Juba. We went [to Sudan
during the] war. Then, [we learned] there is peace in the south, and we had
to return home with our children.
"I have the children of my sister, as all of [my family] died. My two
sisters, my husband, my brother and my parents are all dead. I am left
alone.
"[With] the little money we had, we had to rent the big vehicles that
brought us here. I arrived on April 2, 2012.
"It's a terrible life here - there are so many snakes coming from the river.
It's terrible. First of all, rain, wind, mosquitoes - we have been suffering
with this.
"And since we came here, we have not been given any food. Some of us have
been given that, and some of us not.
"There are no services. Since I came here, it's only [in the] last month I
got grain and some oil. There is even no plastic sheeting for the houses.
"We are going - we want to go. We want to go to our own homeland. Our
children are suffering there, and we are suffering here.
"They said there will be steamers coming to collect us. They used to tell
us. that we will be going, we will be going. But until now we are waiting.
"Our money in the north, they don't use it in the south. [For] many of the
people, [with] the little money they have, they bought things. If they bring
money, it will be taken on the way. This is why the boat [transport barges
along the Nile River] has to come to take the things.
"As a family, how can I go to start [a new life] there in Juba? I am an old
woman; I'm now 60 years [old]. There's no money. I'm taking this [luggage]
for the children. Also, in Juba, if there is nothing, I will sell [our
possessions].
"In fact, we have to sell [some now], but [we will earn] little money, and
we have to buy food with it. I have already sold some chairs and a bed.
"The clinics here are no good. I have cancer and some back problems, and
they cannot help me."
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The long road home to South Sudan
RENK, UPPER NILE STATE, 6 May 2013 (IRIN) - George Malual Deng, 24, has
spent two years stuck in a transit site waiting to return to his home in
South Sudan's Jonglei state. He is among 20,000 people who have made a home
of sorts in the river port of Renk, waiting for a barge to take them further
south.
When he began his journey from Khartoum, Sudan was a single state, albeit
one still bitterly divided between north and south in the wake of decades of
civil war, despite the signing of a major peace accord in 2005.
Since then, almost two million people have left the north for their
homelands in what became the
<
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91660/SUDAN-Referendum-vote-over-now-the-har
d-work-begins> independent Republic of South Sudan in July 2011.
Many, like Deng, say they left amid increasing discrimination and reduced
access to education.
The period following secession was tumultuous, marked by sporadic conflict
between the neighbours' armed forces and a row over how much Sudan could
charge for piping and exporting South Sudan's oil - a dispute that led to
the shutdown of oil production, cutting off 98 percent of South Sudan's
revenue. Amid the furore, Sudan closed its common border, thereby halting
the movement of both people and goods.
"Nobody anticipated on independence that the border with Sudan would be
shut... that the barges would stop moving up and down the River Nile," said
Toby Lanzer, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan and Deputy
Representative for the UN Secretary-General.
Peter Lam Both, chairman of the state-run Relief and Rehabilitation
Commission, says helping South Sudanese come home is one of the government's
priorities, but without funds little can be done.
Luggage
Those living in and returning to the world's newest country, which is among
the least developed and most import-dependent in the world, have to put up
with exorbitant prices for basic goods and household items. For this reason
- and to avoid carrying large amounts of cash that might prove attractive to
officials - many returnees head south laden with large quantities of
furniture and other household items, in effect, their entire life savings.
In the four camps in Renk, piles of such belongings sit beside makeshift
shelters.
"The main problem, really, for the returnees in Renk is the issue of
luggage. When they were brought from Khartoum or Kosti [a Sudanese river
port a little north of Renk], at that time, the government had the resources
to bring them with a lot of luggage," Both said.
Years ago, Mary Venerato Laki fled conflict in South Sudan, moving north to
Sudan, where she worked as a teacher for 42 years.
<
http://www.irinnews.org/HOV/97980/Mary-Venerato-Laki-South-Sudan-returnee-W
e-want-to-go-to-our-own-homeland> full report
The South Sudan government says plans to transport both luggage and people
back were hampered by a lack of funds following the January 2011 secession
referendum. In its first year of statehood, Both says the government
earmarked around US$16 million to finance returns, but these plans were
scotched by austerity measures necessitated by the oil shutdown.
When their turn comes to travel by barge from Renk to Juba, many returnees
discover that they have more luggage than can be carried on the barges, so
some family members tend to stay behind to watch over the excess cargo.
According to the International Organization for Migration, which assists the
returnees, each reaches Renk with an average of one ton in luggage.
People are unwilling to leave their valuables behind, said Deng, the 24 year
old. "They say if they sell their luggage... they won't find [the items they
need] again, and it will be difficult to buy them again, and you're not
guaranteed a job, so it's difficult," he said.
He says selling off his family's only assets is unthinkable.
"I want to go, [but] there's no way. Why would I leave my things and go
alone? I would sleep where? I need to take my things to Juba [South Sudan's
capital]. There's no money. I cannot sell my things," he said.
Poor conditions
Grace Nasona, 38, has been in a Renk transit camp for eight months.
It is a "very, very dirty place. No food, no water [that's] good, no
anything I want to use", she said.
"Renk County does not have a lot of facilities, and when you have 20,000
people that have arrived here, some two years ago, it puts a lot of
constraints on the local population," said Both.
Local officials complain that school class sizes for both morning and
afternoon sessions have swollen to up to 150 pupils. They say healthcare is
also overstretched and crime is rising.
At a clinic in the Mina transit settlement, nurses say malaria is common,
caused by proximity to the Nile, lack of shelter and lack of food, which
weakens people's immune systems.
"We don't want to settle here, but we are waiting here until we can all go
down with our possessions, and my father's [pension] dues have not been
received," said Nanu Chuol, 17, while she had her four-month-old baby tested
for malaria.
"The difference is that in the north, many things were available and my
father was working so we could get food. But now, he's not working, and his
pension hasn't come, so we can't eat much," she said.
"Your chair or your wife"
Renk became even more of a bottleneck after the oil shutdown as the
government looked for other sources of revenue.
"In Upper Nile State, the authorities decided to impose some taxes on the
aid agencies. That problem has been sorted out now, but of course, it did
delay things," said Lanzer.
The IOM says these tax issues resulted in the closure of Renk Port for three
months at the start of 2013.
Two barges packed high with luggage were docked in the port in late April.
Lanzer says that it costs around $1,000 per person to travel downstream to
Juba, and is telling people that now it is time to choose between "your
chair or your wife".
"To my mind, keeping families together is a very important consideration, as
opposed to having some family members stay with luggage in the middle of
nowhere," he said.
"People have been stuck in this situation now, some of them for two years,
and I think it's the moment for hard choices to be made. Do people want to
stay here and integrate into the community? If they do, then let's help them
with that. Let's work with the government to get them a plot of land. If
they do want to continue on to their destination, I think the reality is
that they will have to do that without their luggage," he said.
"Our job is really to help people who have no resources to return," said
Both.
After a prolonged stay in Renk, and days of transportation under rain and
blistering sun, he says that much of the luggage is ruined by the time it
gets unloaded.
More to come
The recent resumption of oil production should refill South Sudan's coffers
in the coming year, but the austerity budget will be in place until 2014.
Meanwhile, Both says around 250,000 more South Sudanese are thought to be in
Sudan, and 40,000 are living in poor conditions at transit camps in Khartoum
who need to come to South Sudan soon.
And while both countries have agreed in principle to honour one another's
"four freedoms" of citizenship, property ownership, jobs and basic rights,
this deal has not yet been finalized.
hm/am/rz
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Received on Mon May 06 2013 - 17:09:40 EDT
