UN: Returning IDPs Darfur face harassment
Posted on | 6 August 2009 | No Comments
EL GENEINA (6 August) – Twenty-five displaced families in West Darfur faced harassment while returning to their home village of Al Faiga, says the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Aid (UNOCHA) in Sudan. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) will raise the issue to the Humanitarian Aid Commission of the Sudanese Government. During the last week, IDP leaders complained over Radio Dabanga that ‘strangers’ had taken their land. They are accusing the government authorities of orchestrating the appropriation of their land. While returning back, the refugees found ‘settlers’ who threatened them physically. The returning families in West Darfur came back mainly from Mesesmenge, Dorti and Habila town to cultivate crops. Some IDP chiefs have been detained over the last weeks after refusing cooperation with the government’s return policies. The increased pressure comes in the same week that the US Envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, called on the IDPs to prepare for return to their home areas. It was following his assertion in June that genocide in Darfur has ended. Several IDP leaders organised protest demonstrations in the camps and have accused Gration of taking the side of the Sudanese government, which has been seeking to dismantle the camps. Gration denied this week in the Washington Post that he is seeking to send Darfur’s displaced into harm’s way, saying he was simply “urging Darfurians and the United Nations to begin preparations for return. I am not pushing for anybody to go back right now, because I don’t think the situation is secure enough,” he said.
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