Village Assessment Report Details Needs of Returnees to Southern Sudan and Southern Kordofan
An IOM report published today highlighting some of the most urgent
needs that former Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have to face
once they return to their areas of origin in Southern Sudan and
Southern Kordofan reveals that access to water is the biggest
problem.
The report, which was compiled in partnership with the Government
of National Unity (GoNU), the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC),
the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), the South Sudan Relief and
Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC) and in cooperation with the
United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and partner NGOs, is based
on assessments carried out in more than 1,500 villages in the
states of Northern and Western Bahr al Ghazal, Warrab, Unity and
Southern Kordofan.
Drinking water in particular remains the top priority in all
areas of returns with almost a quarter of assessed villages relying
on river water as their main water source. Another 60 per cent of
villages rely on water fetched from hand pumps and wells but, the
report found, maintenance of these pumps is extremely poor, leading
to 43 per cent of the pumps not working.
Lack of access to health care was rated as the second major
concern, with only 20 per cent of the villages having some
healthcare facilities but little or no qualified personnel.
Throughout the region, 38 per cent of health staff consisted of
midwives or traditional birth attendants, 32 per cent of nurses, 28
per cent medical assistants and only 2 per cent had medical
doctors.
HIV/AIDS awareness among the surveyed villages was also found to
be low with only 11 per cent of interlocutors in Northern Bahr al
Ghazal and Warrab states reporting any knowledge of the
disease.
Regarding education, the report found that 52 per cent of
surveyed villages had access to education, mostly to basic primary
school (72 per cent), with only 2 per cent having access to
secondary school. Only 30 per cent of all pupils were female in
Southern Sudan.
The overwhelming majority of the population in areas of return
lived from farming and livestock rearing, with some supplementing
fishing activities.
"This report, which seeks to identify needs at the village
level, provides important information on the reintegration needs of
the returnees," says Mario Tavolaj, IOM's Chief of Mission in
Sudan. "It also represents an important tool for planning medium-
to long-term recovery in Southern Sudan."
The March 2005 report of the Sudan Joint Assessment Mission
estimated that some 4 million people had been displaced from or
within Southern Sudan by 20 years of fighting between the northern
and southern regions of the country.
An estimated 1.7 million IDPs have successfully returned to
Southern Sudan since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement in January 2005, according to IOM's latest tracking of
spontaneous returns report.
This report was funded by the United Nations Common Humanitarian
Fund (CHF), the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office
(ECHO), the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA/USAID),
AusAID International Refugee Fund, the Government of Japan and the
United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) Threat and Risk
Mapping Analysis team.
The report is available online at
"paragraph-link-no-underline" href=
"http://www.iom.int/">www.iom.int.
For more information, please contact:
Gerry Waite
IOM Sudan
E-mail:
"mailto:gwaite@iom.int">gwaite@iom.int
or
Inge Zorn
IOM Juba
Tel: +249 (0)910623519
E-mail:
"mailto:izorn@iom.int">izorn@iom.int