americawakiewakie:

More than 100,000 people have left the sprawling camps where they took refuge for nearly a decade and headed home to their villages in Darfur over the past year.

The millions of civilians who fled into camps, their homes often reduced to nothing more than rings of ash by armed raiders, are among the most haunting legacies of the conflict in Darfur, transforming this rural landscape into a collection of swollen impromptu squatter towns.

And while the many thousands going home are only a small fraction of Darfur’s total displaced population, they are doing so voluntarily, United Nations officials say, offering one of the most concrete signs of hope this war-weary region has seen in years.

“It’s amazing,” said Dysane Dorani, head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission for the western sector of Darfur. “The people are coming together. It reminds me of Lebanon after the civil war.”

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