Sudan: As secession nears, citizenship issues still unresolved

KHARTOUM, 15 March 2011 (IRIN) - Less than four months before Sudan is due to split into two sovereign states, the future status of more than a million people of southern origin living in the North - and a smaller number of northerners living in the South - remains unresolved.

Southern Sudan's ruling party on 13 March suspended negotiations with the North about a wide array of post-secession arrangements - including citizenship rights. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) alleged that the northern government had been training and arming militias to destabilize the South and even topple the SPLM government in Juba.

"There is no finalized agreement yet between the two governments although there have been statements by both parties assuring that they will both seek to avoid statelessness," said Bilqees Esmail, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) protection officer in charge of citizenship.

"There has been limited official communication of this to local communities, so people are continuing to make decisions to remain in the North or depart without having all the facts."

In a 9 January referendum, Southern Sudanese voted almost unanimously to secede, exerting a right enshrined in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war. The conflict sparked huge population movements from the South.

"The large number of returns to the South are being fuelled by a number of factors, including uncertainty about citizenship, labour rights, property rights and the fear that they may miss out on the land allocations that are happening in the South," Esmail added.
 
During the referendum period this uncertainty was fuelled by senior officials declaring that in the event of secession, southerners in the north would enjoy hardly any rights at all.

While about 250,000 southerners have left the North in recent months, many more are expected to remain after the Republic of South Sudan comes into being on 9 July (at present, the official title of the autonomous territory is Southern Sudan).

Family ties

James, 23, a shoe shiner in Khartoum, is worried about his future; most of his friends and neighbours have already left. He is in two minds about whether he should leave the city he has called home for almost 20 years for his birthplace in the southern state of Central Equatoria, to which he feels little connection.

"My life is here, I feel at home here; I have heard that people from the South may be chased away when Southern Sudan separates," he told IRIN. "I'm worried - I don't know anyone there, and I've heard life is hard in the South."

Rights groups say Khartoum should grant citizenship according to people's ties to the North, such as whether they were born there, how long they have lived there, and their family ties, rather than ethnicity.

"UNHCR's main concern is that nobody is left stateless; the two countries have to decide how they will liaise with each other regarding citizenship so that everyone in Sudan has a nationality after 9 July," Esmail said.

Once a decision on citizenship is reached, both the North and South will have to deal with the issue of documentation. According to a 2006 household survey, just 33 percent of all births in Sudan are registered, which is likely to prove problematic as such documents may be crucial to accessing citizenship.

"It will be important to put in place procedures to allow individuals to confirm their citizenship where their status is uncertain - for instance for the many people with mixed North-South ancestry, people living in border areas, orphans and so on," said Esmail.

While no decision has been reached regarding dual citizenship, President Omar el-Bashir was quoted in the media in January as saying it would not be an option.

Freedom of movement

Crucially, southerners are concerned about whether they will be allowed to continue working in the North; many southerners were economic migrants who are concerned that the South's economy does not have the capacity to absorb all the returnees. Thousands of southerners work in Sudan's civil service and army, and it remains uncertain what their position will be once the country splits.

In addition, basic services in the South remain very limited, so many returnees would prefer to keep their children in school in the North and to seek health services in the North. Aid workers say some southerners have already started to go back because of the lack of work and basic services in the South.

"It will be important for southerners to retain the ability to work in the North; things are likely to be tough in the South," said Mark Cutts, head of office for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Khartoum. "Apart from the issue of citizenship, the issue of freedom of movement will be important once the South becomes independent."

Populations of particular concern include people living in border areas and pastoralists who migrate between North and South in search of water and pasture. Nomads and pastoralists make up about 11 percent of the Sudanese population, according to UNHCR, which says the main challenge will be to "preserve individual rights, traditional migration routes and livelihoods".

Theme (s): Children, Early Warning, Economy, Education, Governance, Health & Nutrition, Human Rights, Refugees/IDPs,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]