Juba (EFE).- 71 South Sudanese children were reunited with their mothers in Renk on Tuesday, northern South Sudan, after being separated in the Sudanese government’s mass deportation of 106 women last week, according to officials who spoke with EFE.
Juma Chol, an official from the Renk County Humanitarian Commission, told EFE that these reunifications would not have been possible without the constant efforts and diplomatic pressure of Juba. He stated that they work “day and night” with their counterparts in Sudan “to ensure the safe return of the children.”
The children were separated from their mothers during the deportation of 106 South Sudanese women from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, amid intensified repression against migrants and refugees.
Following the deportations, the Renk County Commissioner and the South Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs urgently requested that Khartoum facilitate the children’s return in coordination with humanitarian organizations and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to ensure their safe transit.
“They beat us and wouldn’t let us take our children,” said Gisma Atoch, one of the deported mothers. “I never thought I would see my son again so soon,” she told EFE from Renk.
Another mother, Mary Nyalng, told EFE that Sudanese authorities had taken her teenage son to recruit him for the Sudanese army, which has been engaged in conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023.
“We had no way to get him back until the South Sudanese authorities intervened. Today, I am grateful that we are together again,” she said.
However, Chol lamented that the South Sudanese authorities are still searching for other children who were left alone during the deportations to bring them back to South Sudan with their mothers.
“Our work is not over,” he said.
Since South Sudan gained independence in 2011, Sudan refused to recognize South Sudanese residents in its territory as refugees.
The Sudanese government argued that these individuals are “citizens of a brotherly country” and do not require international protection, this legal ambiguity that has left the South Sudanese in limbo, without papers, rights or UN protection. EFE
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