Rainy season halts refugee repatriation

The repatriation of Eritrean refugees from Sudan, which resumed last month, has been halted due to the start of the rainy season, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. The repatriation, which restarted on 23 June after an 11-month suspension caused by bad weather and heightened tension between the two governments, was stopped on Tuesday, Kabi Bernander, the UNHCR-Eritrea assistant representative, told IRIN on Wednesday. Kabi said since the resumption of the operation in June, the agency had repatriated 1,653 refugees from Sudan. "The last batch was repatriated yesterday [8 July]." The agency has registered about 35,000 refugees who want to return voluntarily from Sudan, but it expects more Eritreans to register once they see the success of the operation, she said. So far, 103,000 Eritreans have returned home from Sudan since July 2000. Refugee status for Eritreans ended in December 2002 after UNHCR decided that the circumstances for such a status no longer existed for most of them. Kabi told IRIN that the operation was expected to resume "some time in September or at the end of the rainy season".