A Decade in Exile: Refugee’s Plea for South Sudan’s Leaders to Choose Peace

(OFUA, UGANDA) – After ten years of exile, survival and longing for home, a South Sudanese refugee leader is making an emotional appeal to the country’s political leaders to put aside their differences and deliver the lasting peace that millions of displaced citizens have been waiting for.

For Otiti Joseph, a refugee living in Ofua settlement, Rhino refugee camp in Uganda, the smile he wears today masks a decade marked by hardship, uncertainty and separation from the land he calls home. Yet despite the challenges, he says his hope for a peaceful South Sudan remains unbroken.

Joseph, who leads the Ofua II Change Makers group, said thousands of South Sudanese refugees continue to endure difficult conditions while dreaming of the day they can return home safely to rebuild their lives, cultivate their ancestral land and participate in shaping the future of their country.

“For ten years, I did not smile like this. For ten years, I survived,” Joseph wrote on his Facebook account on Wednesday morning

He explained that refugee families have persevered through resilience and hard work, building shelters and growing crops to sustain themselves after humanitarian food assistance was reduced.

“Behind me are huts we built, vegetables we planted after rations were cut, and hope we refused to lose,” he said.

Joseph described his smile as one forged through years of endurance, community leadership and determination.

“This smile is forged by ten years of endurance, by leading Ofua II Change Makers, by still standing, still planting,” he said.

The refugee leader urged South Sudan’s political leaders to prioritise peace, reconciliation and national unity, saying the country’s displaced citizens deserve the opportunity to return home without fear.

“I am still hoping for real peace in South Sudan, peace that will let us go back home to vote, to build, to farm our ancestral land without fear,” Joseph added.

His message echoes the hopes of thousands of South Sudanese refugees across the region who continue to look toward their homeland with optimism despite years of displacement.

Joseph said genuine and lasting peace would not only end the suffering of displaced families but also restore dignity, opportunity and the promise of a better future for generations of South Sudanese still waiting to return home.