Several people have died and about eighty thousand others have been displaced from their homes in the last six months, following an upsurge of conflict in South Sudan’s Tambura area, located in Western Equatoria State.
South Sudan's displaced long to return home
Displaced women carry goods as a UN peacekeeper patrols outside the premises of the UN Protection of Civilians (PoC) site in Juba on October 4, 2016
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Their green fertile lands are now abandoned and untilled. Since the outbursts of violence, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, has been conducting regular patrols in the area, while also providing protection for the thousands of displaced civilians.
Besides helping to de-escalate violence, the patrols also monitored and reported on various happenings on the ground.
Now that there is some relative peace in the area, some internally displaced have returned to their homes, only to find destroyed farms, and looted and burnt homes.
“UNMISS hopes that durable peace can be attained in the area, and that all the displaced people can return to their communities," said Guang Cong, the Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in South Sudan - who was on a visit to Tambura.
Low-intensity violence driven mostly by inter-communal clashes has continued in South Sudan despite a peace deal that ended large-scale fighting in 2019.