South Sudan: Hundreds of Foreigners Holed Up in Camps

Juba — Among the 100,000 civilians holed up in UN bases in South Sudan since fighting broke out in mid-December 2013 between supporters and opponents of President Salva Kiir are several hundred citizens from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Many have lost the means to resume their precarious lives in the world's youngest nation, and so cannot return to their home countries for fear of persecution or imprisonment.

The fate of the foreigners is an extra headache for government officials and relief agencies trying to assist nearly 1.5 million others displaced by the violence. Aid workers warn that famine will strike some areas of South Sudan in the coming months unless more humanitarian assistance is provided.

South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, remains one of the world's poorest countries. However, it had been enjoying an economic boom fuelled by oil revenues and international development assistance, and had attracted thousands of investors, traders and labourers from across eastern Africa.

Many hotels and restaurants in Juba are owned by Eritreans, who are also said to dominate the water trucking business in many cities. Somalis are said to be prominent in supplying fuel. Officials say many foreign workers lack official residency or work permits, while the Commission for Refugee Affairs is still establishing itself.

After fighting broke out in December, the governments of Kenya and Uganda sent planes to evacuate their stranded nationals. Uganda used the need to protect its citizens to partly justify its deployment of troops to secure the capital and prop up Kiir's government.

Sara Basha of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it had helped repatriate more than 100 other foreigners to their home countries, including many Sudanese citizens. IOM brought the foreigners to Juba, from where the evacuees' embassies were responsible for their onward transport.

However, she said some embassies lacked the funds to send their citizens back home. "So even if we bring them to Juba we are just moving them from one location to another and there is no solution for them," Barra told IRIN.

Many of those in the IDP camp at UN House, the world body's main compound in Juba, say they have no wish to be repatriated.