Today the last of eight barges transporting over 2,700 returnees
and their luggage will dock at Juba Port after a three-week passage
from Renk in Upper Nile State.

The convoy of three passenger and five luggage barges left Renk,
where over 16,000 returnees from Sudan remain stranded, on August
10th. Returnees disembarked at ports in Upper Nile, Jonglei, and
Lakes as the convoy made its way to the capital.

IOM medical staff screened returnees boarding the barges in Renk
to check their fitness to travel and prevent the spread of
communicable diseases. Children under the age of five were also
vaccinated. A doctor, two nurses and a midwife also travelled with
each passenger barge.

But numerous cases of malaria, diarrhea and acute respiratory
infections (ARIs) were recorded and there were two confirmed
deaths.  Some 24 returnees were hospitalized on arrival in Bor
and 17 in Juba.

IOM medical staff in Juba note that South Sudan, where average
life expectancy is 42, has some of the world’s worst key
indicators for health. Returnees, many of whom suffer from
malnutrition which affects their immune systems, are particularly
vulnerable to disease.

Key health statistics in South Sudan include the fact that less
than 50 per cent of the population have access to clean drinking
water, less than 7 per cent have access to proper sanitation and 88
per cent of women and 63 per cent of men are illiterate. Some 28
per cent  of families in urban areas and 43 per cent  of
families in rural areas do not own mosquito nets to protect them
from malaria.

In Renk, where IOM runs three transit camp primary health care
clinics, health conditions are deteriorating and stranded returnees
are becoming increasingly desperate to join IOM barge convoys
– the only way to leave during the wet season.

But the barge convoy that arrives in Juba today may be the last,
given that IOM South Sudan has no more donor funding for
transport.

But IOM will organize onward road transportation for the
returnees who arrived today from Juba to their final destinations
in the Greater Bahr el Ghazal region.

Earlier this week, an IOM convoy of 71 trucks and buses left
Juba for Aweil in northern Bar el Ghazal – a five-day road
journey – carrying 185 families and their belongings.

Since South Sudan became independent in July 2011, IOM has
provided onward transportation assistance to final destinations for
over 63,000 vulnerable returnees.

For more information, please contact

Samantha Donkin

IOM Juba

Tel: +211(0)922406728

Email: "mailto:sdonkin@iom.int">sdonkin@iom.int