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UNMISS Withdraws Troops from South Sudan IDP Camp

Deng Ghai Deng

   BOR, SOUTH SUDAN - Internally displaced persons at a U.N.-protected
   site in Bor, South Sudan say they're living in fear after the U.N.
   Mission in South Sudan withdrew its peacekeepers from the camp
   recently. A leader of the IDPs said 3,500 families are open to attack
   by armed criminals.

   "U.N. withdrew its troops on September 1st, it didn't inform us. In the
   morning we got that there was no military protection inside the Bor POC
   [Protection of Civilians site]. People are moving from block to block
   because of fear. They abandoned their places," Bor IDP leader Makuach
   Monkem told VOA's "South Sudan in Focus."

   David Shearer, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general in
   South Sudan, said at a Juba news conference on Friday "after careful
   planning," UNMISS began withdrawing its troops from the area because
   UNMISS believes it is now safe for IDPs to return home.

   "There are no longer any uniformed forces inside those sites. That has
   occurred because we assessed that any threats that might have existed
   in the past are no longer in existence today," said Shearer.

   Troops that were assigned to the POCs can now be redeployed to "hot
   spots where people's lives are in immediate danger, like in Jonglei,"
   according to Shearer.

   Munkem insists a unified force is needed to facilitate the safe return
   of IDPs because some of their homes are still illegally occupied.

   "They say the POC should no longer be protected by the UNMISS and will
   be handed over to the government. And we ask which government? Because
   we are now in a unity government and the unity government is not yet
   completed. There is no deployment of a unified force and even the
   security arrangement is not complete," Munkem told VOA.

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