Fighting in the border region, a major lack of infrastructure in the south, and the imminent onset of the rainy season will make it impossible for large numbers to travel-aid agency
LONDON (AlertNet) - Aid agencies have called on Sudan to urgently extend a looming deadline for up to 700,000 southern Sudanese to quit the country, with one rights group warning it could create a “logistical nightmare and humanitarian catastrophe”.
Organisations overseeing returns to the south say it is impossible to meet the April 8 date set by Khartoum for southern Sudanese to either leave or regularise their stay as foreigners.
The ultimatum is thought to affect some 500,000 to 700,000 people living in the north who have ties to South Sudan, which became an independent country last July.
Aid agencies questioned how anyone could expect so many people to pack up and travel to South Sudan in a matter of weeks when only 365,000 southerners had managed the journey in the last year and a half.
Fighting in the border region, a major lack of infrastructure in the south, and the imminent onset of the rainy season will make it impossible for large numbers to travel, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned.
The huge logistical problems have been compounded by Khartoum’s decision this month to stop returns by barge along the Nile – one of the main ways people have been making the journey from north to the underdeveloped south.
Aid sources told AlertNet this was because of fears by Khartoum that the boats are being used by the South to bolster troops near the border.
An IOM official in Khartoum, Filiz Demir, said insecurity in border regions had caused a dramatic fall in the number of people returning to South Sudan. Last month about 5,000 crossed the border, compared to over 85,000 in the same period last year.
She added that those losing their right to live in Sudan included many who considered it home and had no affiliation to South Sudan. Some had spent all their lives in the north, having been born there. Others had Sudanese spouses.
Those wishing to stay in Sudan can in theory apply for a visa or permit after securing South Sudanese citizenship, but Juba has no embassy in Khartoum that can issue passports.
The IOM has asked for a year's extension to the deadline and for Khartoum and Juba to put in place procedures to allow people to stay in the north.
TRANSPORT PROBLEM
Most southerners in the north were displaced during Sudan’s long civil war. South Sudan seceded in July following a 2005 peace deal that ended the conflict, but fighting has continued on both sides of the border.
A memorandum of understanding signed by Khartoum and Juba last week said people could return by rail, road and air.
But Demir said fighting in the South Kordofan border region had made key road routes too difficult to use and flights were out of the question for most southern Sudanese as they lack ID to get through airport security.
She said the only option was to move people by train but the journey from Khartoum could take more than two weeks if the train was held up by fighting.
Demir said she did not think Khartoum would carry out mass deportations, but rights group Refugees International warned there were plenty of precedents for mass deportations when political tensions between countries blew up.
“The idea that mass deportations could happen is absolutely realistic,” added Sarnata Reynolds, RI's expert on statelessness.
Reynolds said Khartoum’s original decision to denationalise the 700,000 southerners “flew in the face of international law” and its recent announcement that it would treat all southerners as foreigners from April 8 was “irresponsible, unfair and cruel”.
“These people have houses, they have children who are at school. Some people may not even have been to South Sudan and may never qualify for (citizenship there),” she added.
“What are you going to do about people with mixed marriages where one partner is Sudanese? What about people who just cannot demonstrate they are south Sudanese – people who don’t know where they are from because they just have never been there?”
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
