Over 5,000 Sudanese repatriated from Ethiopia in 2008

A Sudanese woman looks from the window of a bus
prior to being repatriated to Sudan.

26 December, 2008

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – The United Nations refugee agency has repatriated more than 5,000 Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia this year, a government body said on Thursday.

The 5,120 refugees, all from south Sudan, were taken home from a camp in the Gambela region in western Ethiopia, the (Ethiopian) Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) said in a statement.

It said half of the 22,000 refugees in the area would be repatriated by next year.

Since 2006, more than 35,000 Sudanese refugees have returned from Ethiopia following the signing of a peace agreement between the ex-rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement and the Khartoum government in 2005.

Some two million people died and another six million were displaced in Sudan's 21-year-old conflict that ended with the signing of the 2005 peace deal.