Sudan: Repatriation of refugees from Ethiopia underway

The United Nations refugee agency will repatriate some 4,500 Sudanese refugees from Ethiopia during the next two months, an exercise made possible by the restoration of peace in southern Sudan after two decades of civil war, officials said. Civil conflict pitting the Sudanese government and the former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) ended in January 2005, when the two parties signed a definitive peace agreement after several years of peace talks in Kenya. The SPLM is now a partner in Sudan's government of national unity and administers southern Sudan.