KHARTOUM, Sept 9 (AFP) - Some 65,000 people displaced by fighting have returned to their villages in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, a newspaper reported Thursday, citing a local official.
They went back to their homes in the Zalinge and Wadi Salih districts after an improvement in the humanitarian situation there, according to Sudan's official Al-Anbaa paper.
The Khartoum government has provided the returnees with health care and education as well as crop seeds to plant, the humanitarian aid commissioner in Zalinge, Jamal Suleiman Abdullah, was quoted as saying.
Abdullah said up to 8,000 additional families have recently returned to Zalinge from refugee camps in neighbouring Chad, adding that the authorities would from now on focus on getting those who fled their homes to return voluntarily.
The Sudanese government and the International Organization for Migration have signed a deal under which Khartoum agrees not to force anyone to return home against their will.
More than a million people have been displaced since the government unleashed a bloody clampdown on ethnic minority rebels 19 months ago. A further 180,000 forced to flee into neighboring Chad, according to the United Nations.
Many of the displaced now living in camps say they would be happy to return to their homes, but feel it is still not safe despite government assurances.
The conflict, which the UN says has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, has left between 30,000 and 50,000 people dead.