A fourth IOM convoy of barges carrying nearly 1,800 South Sudanese
from Kosti, a town south of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, has
arrived in the South Sudan capital Juba.

The operation, funded by the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF),
brings the number of people making the 1,436 kilometres river
journey with IOM to nearly 7,000 since 26th July, following South
Sudan's 9th July Declaration of Independence.

The convoy, consisting of six luggage barges and two
double-decker passenger barges, left Kosti on 18th September and
follows an earlier CHF-funded IOM movement of about 7,000 people,
which was completed in early April.

But 11,000 Southerners remain at Kosti and many thousands more
are waiting in Khartoum for help, according to IOM’s Claire
Bolt.

"Many of these people have been waiting for months and have run
out of money. Time is also running out. We have some funding from
the UN to pay for more movements, but this is only a fraction of
what is needed to move all the Southerners who want to leave Sudan
before the expiry of the 9-month interim period," she says.

Movements have been further complicated by outbreaks of violence
in border areas between Sudan and the new South Sudan, closing
roads normally used to access the South and cutting off commercial
and other links.

Journeys to final destinations within the South have also been
hampered by rain and large numbers of Southern Sudanese arriving by
bus have been stranded in three IOM-supported transit camps in
Renk, pending their onward transportation.

However, a new agreement signed on 5th October between IOM and
the National IDP Centre of the Sudanese Ministry of Humanitarian
Affairs will help another 12,000 South Sudanese to travel by train
from the North to Aweil and Wau in South Sudan in the coming
months.

The agreement, funded by the UN Central Emergency Fund (CERF),
will target people camped out and waiting for transport at
departure points around Khartoum, some of them since last
November.

The trains will provide access to Greater Bahr el Ghazal in the
western part of South Sudan, which is otherwise inaccessible from
both the North and the South during the wet season.

This CERF funding will allow IOM to help an additional 6,000
people to travel by barge from Kosti with the help of the Logistics
Sudanese Company. Boarding of the barges has already started. IOM
is also making special arrangements to fly vulnerable people who
are unable to cope with the barge or train journey to South Sudan
from Khartoum.

For more information please contact:

Claire Bolt

Co-chair of the UN Returns Sector and manager of the CHF-funded IOM
returns project

IOM Khartoum

Tel: +249 922 406 659

E-mail: "mailto:cbolt@iom.int">cbolt@iom.int