The UN refugee agency has finished registering a group of 851 refugees from the DRC who have been in South Sudan for the past 40 years – but now want to go home. The group left the country between 1965 and 1968, in order to escape post-independence chaos and fighting, as well as the coup that brought Mobutu Sese Seko to power. Even though a significant proportion of the group were born in South Sudan and are well integrated into Sudanese society, the majority told UNHCR that they have a strong desire to return to the land of their ancestors.

As South Sudanese refugees start to go back to their homeland after more than two decades of exile, a group of refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, is getting ready to leave South Sudan to return to their home country after 40 years in exile.

The signing on Monday of a new constitution for south Sudan marks an important milestone in the implementation of the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), an analyst said. "This is the first time since independence that the south has got its own constitution," said a political analyst. "It is not just the document; it is the contents," he added. "It will be the foundation of the new Sudan. It spells out people's rights and protections. The government and the president will be held to account using the constitution, and it contains important provisions with regard to equal rights for women and media freedom."

The U.N. agency for refugees has received only a fraction of the funds it needs to help millions of people to return home after the end of Sudan's north-south civil war. Wendy Chamberlin, deputy U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said there was a danger donor countries would not deliver promised funds because the world was focused on helping countries hit by the Asian tsunami crisis.

Intermón Oxfam is looking for a Country Representative for South Sudan. Sudan has been undergoing a conflict for more than 40 years, although some well-founded expectations for peace process between the secessionist South and the North are rising today.

Southern Sudanese hopes of attaining their own independent state have suffered two setbacks within a matter of days. In his report on Sudan, U.S. special envoy John Danforth dismisses the option of secession, enshrined in the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Declaration of Principles. These seven brief proposals, agreed in 1994, have formed the basis of subsequent peace negotiations aimed at ending Sudan's decades-old civil war. Instead, Danforth argues that it is more ''feasible'' and ''preferable'' for Sudan to remain one country, with southern Sudanese living under a government that respects their religion and culture. Samson Kwaje, spokesperson for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), says he is unhappy with Danforth's conclusions.

Thousands of people displaced by insecurity prompted by a joint Ugandan-Sudanese military operation against the (Ugandan) rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Eastern Equatoria, southern Sudan, have arrived in the government stronghold of Juba, according to aid officials.

In the past two weeks, the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) has been active in southern Sudan. It says it is there to fight rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army, who have terrorised northern Uganda from their Sudan bases for over 10 years, and that it has permission for its "hot pursuit" policy from the Khartoum government.

The state government of Bahr al-Jabal, southern Sudan, on Monday declared flood-affected districts in and around Juba town to be "disaster zones", Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported on Tuesday. Local government officials said some 17,000 people had been made homeless after the Nile river burst its banks following heavy rain, dpa reported.

Salary : £ 22,617 GBP pa
Location : South Sudan - Lokichoggio based -, Sudan
Closing Date : 20 Jun 2001
Job posted on : 1 Jun 2001

Salary : £ 22,617 GBP pa
Location : FREETOWN, Sierra Leone
Closing Date : 20 Jun 2001
Job posted on : 1 Jun 2001