U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2000 - Sudan

More than 420,000 Sudanese were refugees in seven countries at the end of 1999: approximately 180,000 in Uganda, some 70,000 in Ethiopia, about 65,000 in Kenya, an estimated 50,000 in Congo-Kinshasa, some 35,000 in Central African Republic, about 20,000 in Chad, and 3,000 in Egypt.

Up to 4 million Sudanese were internally displaced – the largest internally displaced population in the world. A huge population of Sudanese exiles lived in Egypt and elsewhere, many of whom considered themselves refugees although host governments did not give them official refugee status.

Sudan hosted more than 360,000 refugees from neighboring countries: about 320,000 from Eritrea, some 30,000 from Ethiopia, about 5,000 from Uganda, nearly 5,000 from Chad, and 3,000 from Congo-Kinshasa.

Pre-1999 Events

Sudan, geographically the largest country in Africa, has long experienced conflict between north and south because of racial, cultural, religious, and political differences.

The country's long civil war has primarily occurred in the impoverished southern region. Major internal divisions within the north and south have further aggravated the violence.

The current phase of civil war began in 1983, pitting the main rebel army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and its allies against the government's military and its allies. The SPLA and its political wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), stated that they were fighting for political autonomy within a united Sudan. Some southerners advocated secession from Sudan and establishment of an independent country in the south.

The SPLA has drawn support primarily from black African southern Sudanese, who are mostly Christians or adherents of traditional religions. The SPLA is a participant in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a coalition of seven political groups – most of them based in northern Sudan – opposed to the current Sudan government. The military alliance between the SPLA and the NDA solidified in 1996 when both forces collaborated to open a significant military front in northern Sudan for the first time.

Sudan's current governmental leaders staged a coup to gain power in 1989. Controlled by the hardline National Islamic Front (NIF), the government has armed civilian militia groups that regularly attack military and civilian targets in the south. Several rebel factions defected to the government during the 1990s, adding to the volatile military situation.

Southern Sudan's expansive rural territory has changed hands numerous times since 1983. By the end of 1998, government forces controlled most major towns in the south, while rebel troops held vast rural areas and a handful of secondary towns.

Combatants on all sides have targeted and exploited civilian populations. A 1998 study by the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) estimated that 1.9 million people in southern and central Sudan had died of war-related causes since 1983. The government and its allies regularly have attacked civilian targets throughout the south, including hospitals and camps for displaced persons. Rebel troops also have committed atrocities against civilians.

The Sudan government has blocked or harassed humanitarian relief operations. Rebel factions have manipulated humanitarian aid programs to gain food for their troops and have conscripted new soldiers from camps housing refugees and displaced people.

A combination of drought, war, and government blockage of relief deliveries triggered a famine in southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal Province in 1998 that killed tens of thousands of people and pushed hundreds of thousands from their homes. The international community belatedly mounted the largest food air drop in history to feed the malnourished populations. The relief operation was still underway at the end of 1998.

New Displacement and Violence in 1999

Approximately 50,000 new Sudanese refugees fled the country and tens of thousands of persons became newly displaced inside Sudan during 1999 as civil war, ethnic conflict, and harsh government policies persisted even as the famine receded.

Warfare continued despite cease-fire declarations by both sides. The Sudan government announced a "comprehensive cease-fire" in 1999 in most areas of the south, but continued to bomb civilian targets and provided arms to pro-government militia that regularly raided southern communities. The government opened a major new oil pipeline, providing what analysts estimated to be millions of new dollars to the government's war efforts.

The SPLA rebels proclaimed a limited cease-fire for the second year in several provinces of the south, but the SPLA and its allies continued to battle pro-government forces elsewhere in southern and eastern regions.

The deadliest and most disruptive violence during 1999 occurred when the government and rebel sides fought internally: pro-government armed factions in the south, primarily ethnic Nuer, clashed repeadedly against each other in Upper Nile Province; ethnic tensions within the SPLA, primarily between ethnic Dinka and ethnic Didinga, degenerated into violence in southeastern Sudan's Eastern Equatoria Province.

An estimated 12,000 persons fled their homes in eastern Sudan because of aerial and artillery bombardments by government forces. The government alleged that attacks by NDA rebels in the east also displaced tens of thousands of people. In southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal Province, raids by government troops and pro-government militia left a path of killings, rape, looting, and destroyed homes and crops.

Tens of thousands of ethnic Nuer civilians were forced to flee their land when ethnic Nuer factions aligned with the government fought against each other much of the year in southern Sudan's Upper Nile Province. Government troops and SPLA forces also reportedly joined the fighting, which was linked to control of nearby oil fields. Combatants burned and looted homes in a deliberate effort to displace local populations.

Thousands of people fled their homes to escape repeated rounds of internecine SPLA violence that erupted in the long-time rebel stronghold of southeast Sudan, near the towns of Chukudum and Naurus. Some families fled to Kenya and Uganda.

At least 10,000 Sudanese fled to Chad and uncounted thousands were internally displaced during the year by local violence in west-central Sudan's Darfur Province, located far from Sudan's normal civil war battlegrounds. Local residents in Darfur, some of them armed by the government, fought over land, water, and grazing rights. The violence pitted Arab nomadic Muslims against African Muslim farmers. Hundreds died and 50 villages were burned, although some unconfirmed reports estimated up to 2,000 deaths.

As in previous years, government planes continued to bomb humanitarian relief sites. A hospital in the town of Yei, near the Uganda border, reportedly suffered more than a dozen bombings during 1999. Government planes bombed two relief centers and barely missed a humanitarian food-drop zone in May, bombed at least two medical clinics in June, and struck a hospital and relief agency compound in July.

Aid workers and local residents charged that the government dropped chemical bombs on at least one site in July, but subsequent inspections were inconclusive. These and other bombings terrorized local populations and disrupted humanitarian aid efforts.

A UN human rights report on Sudan in April stated that "violations are perpetrated by all parties involved in the conflict, the government and groups under its control bearing the largest share of responsibility." The report concluded that government-backed militia "are given free rein to perpetrate destructive and predatory attacks against the civilian population, including the abduction of women and children."

A second UN human rights report, in November, expressed "deep regret that the civilian population are the principal victims of the conflict and of the human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law which are being perpetrated." The UN report found that "survivors of raids are living in the bush without shelter, food, or water, and with no medical supplies. The displaced say that government troops deliberately burned their food stores and killed their livestock to make it impossible for them to stay in the area.... Thousands now face slow death from starvation."

Ethnic reconciliation negotiations sponsored in southern Sudan by local religious groups showed promise during the year. Local traditional chiefs representing ethnic Dinka and ethnic Nuer communities signed a peace agreement in March pledging to end hostile practices such as cattle raiding and abductions. A similar peace agreement in November pledged to heal schisms among Nuer factions.

U.S. Government Political Response

The U.S. government appointed a special envoy for Sudan in late 1999 who was mandated to focus on human rights, humanitarian aid, and support for peace negotiations. U.S. officials provided increased financial support to ongoing peace negotiations, and continued to condemn the Sudanese government's human rights record.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution in July condemning the Sudan government for "deliberately and systematically committing genocide in southern Sudan." U.S. officials continued to provide temporary asylum, known as temporary protected status, to Sudanese nationals in the United States.

Many critics charged, however, that U.S. policies were inadequate and ineffective in pursuing a just peace in Sudan.

Cumulative Displacement and Conditions

Sixteen years of warfare have cumulatively left nearly 4.5 million Sudanese uprooted from their homes, including an estimated 4 million internally displaced persons and more than 400,000 refugees. Hundreds of thousands of others, perhaps millions, have migrated from the country in search of better economic opportunities, primarily to Egypt.

Up to 1.5 million people were internally displaced in the south, according to some estimates. Nearly 2 million Sudanese – many of them southerners – have fled or migrated northward to Khartoum, the capital. Hundreds of thousands more were internally displaced in central Sudan's Nuba Mountains region.

Southern Sudan continued its gradual recovery from the deadly 1998 famine in Bahr el-Ghazal Province. Overall crop production improved during 1999, and malnutrition in the worst-affected famine zone dropped to about 10 percent among displaced persons and resident populations alike. UN and other international relief agencies, operating together as Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), delivered more than 100,000 tons of food aid by air and land during the year.

The International Committee of the Red Cross targeted 60,000 households – approximately 300,000 people – for distributions of seeds and farming tools. Relief organizations, including a handful operating outside the OLS framework, spent more than $200 million on emergency relief to Sudan during the year.

More than 40,000 displaced persons in the government-controlled town of Wau, in Bahr el-Ghazal Province, lived in a "very precarious situation" while waiting relocation to a more permanent and safer displacement camp. A UN report characterized Wau's uprooted people as "a population of displaced within the internally displaced."

Sudan government officials granted limited humanitarian access to rebel-held areas of the Nuba Mountains region in central Sudan – home to about 200,000 people – for the first time since 1983. Nuba residents have long resisted government efforts to relocate them. The long-awaited assessment of conditions in the Nuba Mountains concluded that "serious violations of human rights and humanitarian principles" have occurred there and that "a whole generation of children has been deprived of schooling."

The assessment found that most households in the Nuba region were able to produce only one-fourth of their own food needs, livestock were inadequate, and health centers lacked basic supplies. Malnutrition was limited, however, because residents found alternative ways to cope. Government officials continued to block delivery of relief supplies to rebel-held areas of the Nuba Mountains, despite the assessment's conclusion that the population needed aid.

Warfare and government policies continued to impede humanitarian assistance in several other areas. Battles in southern Sudan's Upper Nile Province blocked aid projects despite 600,000 persons there in need of food aid. The government banned relief flights to most areas of Upper Nile Province, forcing humanitarian agencies to evacuate the few relief workers operating there. The UN World Food Program (WFP) warned that the flight ban "could provoke a humanitarian catastrophe." Sudanese officials also continued to bar aid flights to rebel-held territory in southeastern Sudan.

Aid workers faced additional dangers. Unidentified gunmen in SPLA territory attacked a barge laden with relief supplies in May, killing one person and causing suspension of barge deliveries. SPLA soldiers allegedly executed a local Red Crescent aid worker. Violence in southeast Sudan killed two local relief workers and forced temporary suspension of humanitarian activities there late in the year.

Insecurity halted a measles vaccination program targeting 50,000 children. However, aid workers completed a polio vaccination campaign for 750,000 children and launched an ambitious meningitis vaccination program after a meningitis outbreak killed 2,000 people early in the year.

Aid agencies and international donors continued efforts to improve southern Sudan's abysmal roads in hopes of reducing their reliance on expensive and politically sensitive food air drops to needy populations. Road deliveries of food increased 70 percent during the year. Aid workers eventually hope to gain year-round road access to areas prone to serious food shortages and population displacements. Air drops continued at reduced rates.

U.S. aid officials began to implement a five-year, $13 million transitional project to improve local skills and self-governance in rebel-held areas of southern Sudan. The program, which spent $2 million in 1999, provided grants to local southern Sudanese organizations.

Internal Displacement in Khartoum

In the vicinity of Khartoum, nearly 2 million internally displaced persons lived in more than a dozen dilapidated squatter neighborhoods, in government-designated camps, and in other areas of the sprawling capital. Khartoum's displaced people accounted for 40 percent of Khartoum's population, according to a UN estimate.

Since 1991, Sudan officials have forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of Khartoum's displaced people to alternative settlement sites in the Khartoum area. Officials have defended the relocations as necessary for urban renewal. Critics charged that the forced relocations constituted discrimination against black southerners.

Approximately three-quarters of a million people were moved during the 1990s, often at gunpoint. Authorities forcibly relocated some 10,000 displaced squatters during 1999 and demolished their homes. Sudan officials announced during the year that they plan eventually to transfer some 230,000 displaced persons from four existing camps to new sites.

Most of Khartoum's displaced people, illiterate farmers from other regions of Sudan, struggled to support themselves without agricultural opportunities. A small percentage received food aid from WFP. Food deliveries to squatter sites encountered some delays during the year because of insecurity along the road linking Khartoum to the country's main port.

A WFP survey during the year found that 80 percent of the displaced population were "very poor" and typically spent four-fifths of their meager incomes on food purchases that met only half their nutritional needs. WFP food aid to 50,000 displaced persons enabled the beneficiaries to reduce their food expenditures and spend more on housing improvements, the survey found.

Fewer than 10 percent of displaced people in the capital held formal jobs, according to an earlier UN study. More than 90 percent of Khartoum's prison population were displaced women jailed for prostitution, selling beer, and other illegal livelihoods as they struggled to survive, according to the study.

Only one-third of displaced children in Khartoum attended school, another earlier UN survey revealed. Many of Khartoum's 10,000 to 15,000 street children were from displaced families, the UN reported.

Refugees from Eritrea

Most Eritrean refugees fled to Sudan in the 1980s or earlier to escape civil war and famine. Some have been in Sudan 30 years.

Approximately 320,000 Eritrean refugees were living in Sudan at the end of 1999. About 150,000 lived in 25 camps and settlements in eastern Sudan, where they received food aid, health and education programs, technical training, and special aid for women and children. An additional 170,000 Eritrean refugees resided in urban areas of Sudan.

Virtually no Eritrean refugees repatriated from Sudan during 1999. The return home of Eritrean refugees has proceeded slowly even though Eritrea's war for independence ended successfully in 1991. An estimated 130,000 Eritrean refugees have repatriated from Sudan since 1991, most with no international assistance. About 25,000 repatriated from Sudan during 1994-95 with the help of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as part of an experimental return program.

Several factors have impeded the return of the remaining refugee population: Eritrean authorities were reluctant to facilitate large-scale repatriation because they feared some refugees were Islamic fundamentalists who might politically destabilize Eritrea; diplomatic tensions between Sudan and Eritrea were tense during the last half of the 1990s; landmines and a military offensive by Sudanese insurgents have caused insecurity along the Sudan-Eritrea border; and the eruption of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia during 1998-99 posed an additional obstacle to the refugees' return.

Improved diplomatic relations between Sudan and Eritrea in 1999 rekindled expectations that the refugees might be allowed to repatriate in the near future. UNHCR indicated that an organized return program might begin in April 2000.

A UNHCR survey in 1998 found that about 90 percent of Eritrean refugees living in camps were willing to repatriate. About half of the refugees living near the Sudan-Eritrea border have visited Eritrea to assess conditions for eventual reintegration, according to a separate survey.

Refugees from Ethiopia

Most Ethiopian refugees fled to Sudan in the 1980s to escape civil war and human rights abuses in Ethiopia at that time. About 72,000 have returned home to Ethiopia since 1993, leaving an estimated 30,000 Ethiopian refugees in Sudan during 1999.

An organized UNHCR-sponsored repatriation program ended in mid-1998. No significant repatriation from Sudan to Ethiopia occurred in 1999. The 30,000 Ethiopian refugees remaining in Sudan included about 12,000 residing in camps, and nearly 20,000 others who lived on their own in urban areas.

UNHCR announced in September that, effective March 2000, most Ethiopian refugees in Sudan would no longer receive automatic refugee status. UNHCR stated that conditions in Ethiopia had improved since 1991, and therefore there would be a "cessation" of refugee status for Ethiopians who arrived in Sudan prior to 1991. Ethiopians fearful of returning home would be allowed to apply for asylum and would have their asylum claims judged on an individual basis, UNHCR stated.

UNHCR indicated that it would try to persuade Sudan authorities to grant permanent residency to former Ethiopian refugees who had developed strong ties in Sudan based on marriage, property ownership, or business commitments.

Refugees from Other Countries Nearly 5,000 Chadian refugees remained in western Sudan at the end of 1999. They were integrated into local communities and did not require assistance. Many have previously expressed a desire to repatriate, however.

Many of the estimated 5,000 Ugandan refugees have lived in southern Sudan for 20 years or more. Ugandan authorities halted their repatriation during 1998-99 by requiring UNHCR to provide information about the identity of each refugee prior to their return. UNHCR submitted the information but received no authorization from Ugandan officials to resume repatriations.

USCR Actions

The U.S. Committee for Refugees issued a report in February, Follow the Women and the Cows: Personal Stories of Sudan's Uprooted People, which depicted the humanitarian crisis in Sudan through the stories of two-dozen internally displaced southern Sudanese. The report pointed out that Sudanese "have suffered more war-related deaths during the past 15 years than any single population in the world," and that "the people of Sudan have fled their homes in larger numbers than any other country on earth."

Follow the Women and the Cows stated that "the war in Sudan is very much a war against civilians. Families are deliberately killed or purposely forced to run for their lives. Homes are destroyed, crops are burned, cattle and other meager possessions are looted, and innocent children are abducted." The report said, "Soldiers ambush displaced people even as they flee, defenseless, through the countryside."

The USCR report emphasized that "virtually all of southern Sudan's 5 million people have fled home at least once during 15 years of war. Families have become scattered to the winds.... Many southern Sudanese people have lived an uprooted existence for ten years or more. They have become vagabonds of their country's war." The report added, "Many have been displaced a half-dozen times during the past decade."

USCR published an update reviewing conditions in Sudan in March, noting that the famine was receding but nutrition remained "precarious." USCR reported that insecurity had forced aid workers to evacuate from relief sites more than 25 times in January alone, and that Sudanese authorities continued to block relief flights to ten needy locations.

USCR issued policy recommendations in March urging the U.S. government to provide more diplomatic and financial support to help facilitate a just peace in southern Sudan. USCR recommended that the UN Security Council schedule a binding popular referendum among southern Sudanese within three years "to determine the political future of southern Sudan." A USCR letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan encouraged him to "take leadership" in efforts to sponsor a referendum. USCR also urged world leaders to prepare to take stronger steps to deliver humanitarian assistance to stricken areas blocked by the Sudan government.

In May, USCR reported on aerial bombings by Sudan government planes that killed one child at a civilian health clinic. USCR noted that aerial bombings of civilian targets were occurring an average of 40 times per year. USCR recommended that the U.S. government "formally and publicly condemn bombings of civilian targets by the Sudan military immediately after each incident."

USCR provided analysis and support for a resolution approved by the U.S. House of Representatives that condemned the government of Sudan for its war and human rights abuses. In October, USCR supported calls for a worldwide campaign to divest stock in a Canadian oil company operating in Sudan. USCR stated that the company, Talisman Oil, was guilty of "the worst form of Western corporate irresponsibility" by providing oil revenues to a Sudan government that was engaged in "scorched earth warfare" near the oil fields.

In September, USCR and other humanitarian and religious organizations met with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to urge stronger U.S. efforts toward a just peace in Sudan. USCR also hosted a public briefing in Washington, D.C. by southern Sudanese and Western mediators involved in grassroots peace efforts.

USCR provided analysis and policy recommendations at a U.S. congressional hearing on Sudan. USCR stated that Sudan must become "a consistent priority" of U.S. officials and recommended that world leaders "be prepared to declare that southern Sudan is a 'humanitarian autonomous zone' for purposes of delivering humanitarian relief wherever such relief is required."

USCR estimated that Sudan's war was killing an average of more than 350 persons each day, directly or indirectly. "The situation in Sudan is extraordinary," USCR told the U.S. Congress.