The IOM team, consisting of medical and operational staff, has arrived in the Ethiopian towns Kirmuk and Gizane to organize the immediate relocation of the newly arrived to an established refugee camp in Sherkole, some 50 km inland from the border.
IOM will today assess road conditions, identify local service providers and set up embarkation sites and medical screening facilities with a view to start the relocation of the refuges away from the border within the next 24 hours.
IOM will provide water and high energy biscuits during the travel and experienced IOM operations and medical staff will assist vulnerable individuals with special needs.
“With reports of on-going fighting and bombing in Blue Nile State, we expect more people to cross into Ethiopia in the coming days,” says Mohammed Abdiker, IOM Director of Operations. “More funding will be needed to move people away from congested border areas to camps where the refugees will receive the assistance and protection they need.”
Since the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005 between the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the South Sudan rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, some two million displaced people have returned to their communities in South Sudan and the so-called “Three Areas” of Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.
However, all three areas have suffered heavy fighting at some point in recent months as uncertainty over their future remains. Their status on whether they would be part of Sudan or South Sudan was left unresolved in the CPA.
