Photo Credit: Refugees International
06/06/2007

“We have decided to return home because the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed and the war is over.” This is what dozens of Sudanese people said to Refugees International during a mission to South Sudan this past June. More than twenty years of civil war between the army of the Government of Sudan and its proxy militias and the South Sudan People’s Liberation Army caused two million deaths, displaced four million people both internally and in neighboring countries, and devastated the southern part of the country. Infrastructure like roads and sewer systems have to be built from scratch and thousands of boreholes must be dug to provide water for the people returning home. Public services like hospitals and schools, which one humanitarian official describes as “at stone age,” also need to be established.