About 1.7 million uprooted people have returned to southern Sudan since the semi-autonomous region signed a peace deal with the north in 2005, an international aid agency said Friday.
About 60 percent of the families returning to southern Sudan are headed by single women, and 59 percent of the returnees are children aged 5 to 17, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
An assessment in March 2005, shortly after the peace agreement was signed, estimated 4 million people had been displaced from or within southern Sudan by 20 years of fighting between the north and south of the country.
According to an IOM report, based on interviews with 875,000 internally displaced people during their return journey, 75 percent used buses or trucks to get home, 17 percent walked, 5 percent traveled by boat and 3 percent traveled by plane.
IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said it was a positive sign that people started heading back to their war-ravaged homeland "almost immediately" after the peace agreement was signed.
"There is a kind of confidence and a return of faith in the future of South Sudan," she said.
Detailed information about those seeking to re-establish themselves in the region should help aid workers and government authorities plan assistance programs, covering food, shelter, health care and other vital needs, according to the IOM.
"Tracking spontaneous returns, particularly at the village level, provides important information on the reintegration needs of vulnerable individuals and families," its Sudan mission chief, Mario Tavolaj, said in a statement.
"It also represents an important tool for planning medium to long-term recovery in Southern Sudan."
PHOTO CAPTION
Refugees who fled the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region run for shelter during a dust storm at Djabal camp near Gos Beida in eastern Chad June 19, 2008.
Reuters