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promote durable solutions. In the absence of work oppor- tunities even for many nationals, however, third country resettlement has so far proved the only viable means of provid- ing a future for people in this group, and even then numbers are so limited that the majority cannot be catered for in this way. An inter-agency mission which visited Djibouti in June 1980 concluded that international assistance under
under the
the most favourable terms was an absolute necessity to help the country face its immediate needs as well as its long-term development requirements.
44. The Sudan has reported the first massive influx of re- fugees of Eritrean origin as occurring in March 1967, when within a few weeks some 26 000 refugees crossed the border, many of them women and children. Further major influxes occurred in 1970, 1972 and 1975.
With intensified military action in Eritrea and Tigre in 1978, many tens of thousands more poured into the Sudan. The Government established as early as 1968 an Office of the Commissioner for Refugees which has worked in close co-ordination with all those con- cerned with what became in the 1970s a complex programme of relief and rural relocation. Several rural settlements were planned from 1968 onwards, but after a number of years the continued waves of arrivals defeated the joint efforts to bring about durable solutions all the more as a high proportion of those arriving from Eritrea have been urban refugees not eager to integrate in rural areas. Their presence in Khartoum and other cities however has posed some insurmountable problems, since few work opportunities have existed for them and they could not live without assistance.
45. In general, the nearly half million refugees with whom the Sudan has been confronted have affected negatively some provin- cial educational and medical services which were already fully stretched to provide a minimal service to the local populations. The problems were sufficiently acute for the Government to decide to convene at Khartoum in June 1980 an international conference on the refugee problem and to request the Secretary- General of the United Nations to send an inter-agency mission to assess the needs of the refugees. The mission, which visited the Sudan in 1980, concluded inter alia that:
"The
serious economic constraints, together with the Government's heavy external debt, make it difficult for the Government to provide normal social services to its own population, much less extend additional services to a large number of refugees. The refugee burden in the eastern province is
is particularly onerous.