Magdalena Tabu in her makeshift house in Renk in March 2021 | Credit | David 0912200561

A South Sudanese woman who has not been able to reunite with all her family says she is stranded in Renk County for nearly a decade after leaving Sudan in 2012.

Magdalena Tabu Haji was among former refugees who were to be repatriated from Sudan to various parts of South Sudan.

Magdalena was supposed to be transported to Eastern Equatoria State.

But her return to her home area reportedly stalled as soon as she reached Renk in Upper Nile state.

Millions of South Sudanese who fled the north during Sudan’s decades-long civil war started returning home in 2010, ahead of the referendum.

But humanitarian actors say many remained stuck at transit sites, mostly way stations, ports and temporary camps — with limited access to food and medical care.

They say thousands have not been able to get to their traditional homes.

Magdalena is among those who were supposed to be transported by barge and bus.

She says she and many others were told to wait for their turn in a week’s time.

“We were told after seven days we would be taken to village. But we have been are suffering since then,” Magdalena told Eye Radio.

But it has been 9 years now and Magdalena is still stuck in Renk.

“There is hospital. If you are sick, you suffer until you die. We are really dying; and even today (March 11), we came from burying one of us. We used to be many, but few have remained,” she added.

Pictorial: other returnees stuck in Renk | Credit | David 0912200561

A resident of Renk County says she witnessed the dire condition Magdalena and other IDPs have been living in.

“What this woman is saying is true because they do not have anything, and they are elderly people. They are living by the river Nile, and fall sick of malaria, which is killing them. They are hungry too,” Amani said on the Dawn show.

Earlier, a report by UN agencies stated that many returnees report a preference for resettling in urban locations, either because they lack the skills necessary to work as farmers after years of living in northern cities or refugee camps.

It added that some lack the interest in returning to an agro-pastoralist lifestyle – or have never actually done so in the case of children and youth who were born and raised in cities and towns.