The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has said voluntary repatriation of southern Sudanese refugees from neighboring countries continues regardless of the on-going rainy season.

The agency is reacting to allegations made by a member of the Central Equatoria State Legislative Assembly on the pretext that the repatriation agencies were discouraging refugees from returning home.

Miraya FM Nelson Lwak spoke to Mr. Girmai Wondimu, a senior return and reintegration officer at the UNHCR who said the allegations are not true but that the commission is committed to the repatriation of refugees.

"It is not us who decide but refugees themselves decide whether they want to come back or not, this is for UNHCR, particularly for refugees," Mr. Wondimu told Miraya FM.

He denied that the agency is reluntant to repatriate the refugees back to the south, "we are not reluctant because for us what we do is we have taken authorities from south Sudan to the refugee camp, talk to the refugees themselves," he said.

Mr. Wondimu said that the UNHCR brought in refugee leaders from the refugee camps to come and see for themselves and decide for themselves.

"So this issue of UNHCR and its partners being reluctant to bring back refugees is not varied at all," he asserted. However, he said the agency is ready to help the government of South Sudan in providing services like medical, school and safe drinking water to the returnees, although, he said, it is not the mandate of the UNHCR to provide such services.

 Mr. Wondium also said the agency has already repatriated 160,000 people to south Sudan from the neighboring countries. These include repatraiting refugees from abroad, such as some from Brazil. He said under the same arrangement, 133 refugees from Uganda last week reached South Sudan through Nimule.

And, according to the UNHCR Geographic Information System, the agency plans to repatriate 102,000 people from Egypt, Central Africa Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.