Eritreans leave Sudan at last

Some of the refugees have not been home since 1967

By Alex Last on the Sudan-Eritrea border

This week convoys of Eritrean refugees started leaving the Shagareb camp in north-eastern Sudan in a rekindled repatriation programme.

Eritreans have returned in the past but these are the first long-term refugees returning home.

The Eritreans in Sudan make up one of the oldest refugee communities in the world with the first camp being established in 1967.

The repatriation programme is being organised by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, in conjunction with the Eritrean and Sudanese authorities.

Crossing the border

As temperatures soared on the Eritrean Sudanese border, 75 trucks and buses carrying the refugees and their possessions, passed into Eritrea.

Whilst in Shagareb, he married, raised a family and waited to go home

Trailing clouds of dust, the convoy rolled past hundreds of local people gathered to welcome them home.

Diplomats from countries who had donated money to the programme flew in for the event with top Eritrean officials.

For many of those on board the trucks, it has been a very long time since they last saw their country.

I talked to Ibrahim Idris Ali, who had fled western Eritrea in 1984 because of fierce fighting during Eritrea's war of independence, while at the same time drought and famine famously gripped the region.

Family life

Whilst in Shagareb, he married, raised a family and waited to go home, despite being one of the first to sign up for repatriation.

He said he was apprehensive about seeing his homeland for the first time in 17 years.

Many Eritreans fled the recent war with Ethiopia

Since the end of the war of independence in 1991, around 175,000 Eritreans have returned from Sudan.

However, 147,000 Eritreans still live in camps in Sudan. According to the UNHCR around 90% have expressed their wish to return.

There is enough funding at the moment to bring back 20,000. The UNHCR says the target is 60,000 this year

Some refugees are delaying their return to Eritrea. They are waiting in the camps to be reunited with their sons who were conscripted into the Sudanese army, apparently because of mistaken identity.

Head of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission Hiwot Zemichael said that the matter had been raised and Sudanese authorities had agreed to return the young men

For those who have returned, a new life is just beginning.

They are allowed to choose where they want to be resettled. Not surprisingly, most are choosing good agricultural land, and to be close to their friends who were their neighbours in the camp for so many years.