“Why don’t you take us back
home?”

These are the first words whispered by Thiang
Adak, a gaunt and exhausted widow and mother of eight as she
reaches an IOM information centre in El Salaam, a windswept and
dusty camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) which sprawls
for miles across the grey Nile River from Khartoum.

Thiang is one of the estimated one million
IDPs who have settled in and around Khartoum in four official camps
and numerous squalid squatter areas, which dot the flat and barren
landscape. El Salaam camp alone shelters an estimated 100,000
persons, almost all displaced from southern Sudan.

Thiang and her family are Dinkas from the
Melusal tribe. They fled the insecurity in the garrison town of
Aweil in North Bahr El-Ghazal in 1992 and travelled by train and by
road to Khartoum, where they struggled to survive while waiting for
better days to come.

But two years ago, more hardship struck as
Thiang’s husband Thaw died because the family couldn’t
afford to pay for medical treatment. “He had fever and bloody
diarrhoea for a week,” recalls Thiang. “And in the end
he just wasted way.”

Since her husband’s death, Thiang and
her children have been struggling to survive. Her two eldest
daughters have now married and have settled in Khartoum. But most
days, her other six children have to walk for hours to forage for
food around markets in downtown Omdurman.

“Sometimes, I find work cleaning houses
and washing clothes in Khartoum,” says Thiang. “But
this is not enough to feed us all.” 

Thiang and her six children live in a shack
made of flattened cardboard boxes and plastic bags stitched
together and stretched over wooden poles. The hovel is divided into
two cramped areas, each with an old bedstead and a chair, the only
evidence that once, life was slightly better for the family.

Like many other IDPs from the south, Thiang is
a Christian. She wears a small cross, which hangs from her
shrivelled neck on a piece of string. Above one of the beds, a
faded religious print is pinned on a piece of cardboard. 

“God willing, we will soon be able to go
back to Aweil,” says Thiang, who visits one of the three IOM
centres in el Salaam on a regular basis, on the lookout for any
information which could help her return home.

To date, twelve information centres have been
established by IOM in the greater Khartoum region to provide
would-be returnees with up-to-date information on conditions in
areas of return and distribute flyers on a variety of health
issues, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and guinea worm and sanitation,
and to warn people of the threat posed by unexploded bombs and
landmines.

Twenty-two year old Maria Ken, a mother of
three, is also from the North Bahr El-Ghazal town of Aweil. But she
and her husband would rather visit Aweil before deciding if and
when they want to return home.

“Organizing go-and-see visits for
community representatives is crucial to help IDPs decide whether
they want to return home or not,” explains Mario Tavolaj,
IOM’s Chief of Mission in Sudan.

After a pilot phase in the town of Kosti, in
the White Nile province, IOM recently organized several go-and-see
visits to the Nuba region of South Kordofan for community
representatives who in turn informed IDPs on the conditions in the
areas of return.

Already, some small scale returns to the south
are taking place. James Juna’s wife and two children recently
returned to Juba after saving enough money to pay for the trip.
“I want to go back as soon as possible,” says James who
earns a meagre living working at a local bus stop with a whistle
around his neck as his only tool. He earns on average 1,000
Sudanese Dinar, around US$ 4 per week and hopes to be able to
afford the return journey home before the start of the rainy
season, expected in late April.

“Most IDPs have relied on international
assistance for years now,” says IOM’s Stefano
Tamagnini. “And they will only return in numbers once they
are sure that they will receive comprehensive return and
reintegration assistance.”

As part of its return and reintegration
programme in 2006, IOM has appealed for US$ 24 million and has to
date received US$ 7,356,202 from Denmark, the Common Humanitarian
Fund and the Netherlands.