According to recent reports by IRIN News and Action Against Hunger, southern Sudan faces monumental challenges in providing adequate nutrition and infrastructure to approximately four million internally displaced persons (IDPs), many of whom belong to the Nuba and Nuer ethnic groups, that are expected to return to their homelands within the next two years. The Action Against Hunger report stated that the rate of overall malnutrition in southern Sudan has reached 20.7 percent, and in some specific regions is estimated to be as high as 39.4 percent. IRIN News reported that most of the IDPs, who were living in makeshift shelters around the Sudanese capital Khartoum, are eager to return to the south. The 21-year civil war between the Sudanese Government and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which is separate from the current violence in Darfur, ended in a peace agreement signed in January of this year.
