IDPs In Ezo County To Voluntarily Return Home

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Gurtong visited a camp at Maputo-boma over the weekend, a village near Ezo where some 800 people have been living.

Most LRA attacks occurred in Ezo County where scores of people were killed, their villages burned, and their property stolen.

The South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC) report that nearly 13,000 people have been living in Ezo County as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) since 2007. The SSRRC continues that more than 22,000 people were displaced in all the Payams within Ezo.

Here at Maputo-boma, the IDPs are volunteering to return to their places of origin due to the ‘tough’ life in the camp.

48 year old Mario Zezimo Gitagasi had to flee his village in Bagidi payam in 2007:
 “Life was very bad there; no medication, school for our children; teachers tried to help but were also in fear. What made me decide to return to Bagidi together with my remaining children is because people living there have never heard any rumours of the LRA crossing or killing people,” Mario said.

49 year old Angelina Mangbaari says all she wants to do is return to her village and start over:
“We were in problems and our government and the UN tried to rescue us. We slept under these tents and they gave us some food to survive. However, we realised as a people to better return to our original home areas due to the challenges we face. There are no boreholes and medication for our children,” Angelina narrates.

35 year old Bendita Yetero said that they seeked refuge in Ezo but they have to return because their children are dying due to fatigue, sleeping out in the cold and very many uncontrollable diseases.
 
The IDPs are calling on the government to provide farming tools, seeds and food rations to the displaced persons.

The SSRRC County Secretary for Ezo, Mr. Francis Boroyo Juma confirmed that three quarters of the IDPs have already returned to their respective villages.

He says the remaining IDPs are the refugees from the neighbouring DR Congo who still fear the instability in their country and will wait until peace is restored in Congo.

Mr. Juma agrees that the returning IDPs need food rations in order to survive:
“We still insist they should be given some little food because even if we provide them with these tools and seeds, they might eat the seeds,” he said.

He says that humanitarian groups should also help the host community, especially those families who took the IDPs into their homes.

“We also want to inform our partners that when planning anything for Ezo County they should consult the County authority and our office for priorities and directions,” Juma said.

Although the security situation has generally improved in Western Equatoria State, LRA rebels are still hiding in the thick jungle of the neighbouring DR Congo and Central Africa and might attack these communities again.