(CNN) -- Southern Sudanese have been steadily trickling back home from their country's northern region ahead of next week's historic election, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said an average of 2,000 people are crossing from the north into the south every day. The number of returnees has doubled since mid-December and now stands at 120,000, the UNHCR said in a news release.
Several million people in the African nation of Sudan will be going to the polls to vote on whether the autonomous region of Southern Sudan should become an independent country or remain part of Sudan.
"We anticipate that many more will return in the coming months following the referendum. Many of the returnees who have lived in the North for years say they have left for fear of the unknown and the opportunity to start afresh in their native South," the UNHCR said. CNN
