United Nations Radio

Nearly a hundred Sudanese refugees, mainly from Darfur, who have been stranded in a makeshift camp in the desert in Iraq since 2005, left Tuesday morning for Amman, Jordan, en route to Romania.

Sudanese refugees boarding plane

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees -UNHCR says the group will be housed in a new Emergency Transit Centre in Romania while they wait for their resettlement applications to be processed.
UNHCR Spokesman Ron Redmond says the group will eventually be settled elsewhere.

"The group actually fled Sudan in the late 1980s and since their departure from Sudan, conditions in Darfur have seriously deteriorated. The refugees have had little or no contact with their families in Sudan since they left. They fear returning to their country where they would find themselves in a situation of internal displacement."

Redmond says the refugees suffered abuse, blackmail, eviction and assaults by militias following the 2003 downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

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