Demographic Alert

Sudan is facing the return of around 1.5 million South Sudanese for the referendum to decide whether the South should secede from the North. This throws up certain demographic tensions which have ignited the old struggle between the two sections of Africa’s largest country.
A returning Sudanese man wrote, “I agreed with the proposal of going home before the referendum because it is better to be poor but free in our own country. The referendum lies in the hands of all South Sudanese including those of us outside South Sudan. We must go home because home is home no matter what it takes. We are tired of being mistreated and used as second class citizens by the Arabs in the North. It is better to eat mushrooms in freedom than to eat meat in slavery.”
This raises two crucial issues with the plan. Firstly, North-South tensions are expected to get worse, and many South Sudanese are wary of their Northern counterparts, expecting violence. The largely Christian Southerners have always been rumoured to be grossly mistreated by the Muslim Northerners, and allegations of slavery have been flatly denied as attempts to slander Arabs worldwide. However, these allegations have some grounding in truth – the northerners do look down on the Southerners, and the GoSS’s attempt to secede will probably re-ignite the tension.
Secondly, poverty is very possible for those returning home. The Sudanese authorities need around $25 million to make their plan “Come Home and Choose” effective. This would include development and reconstruction, which would benefit the 2 million South Sudanese that have returned home since 2005 (many of whom are still living in poverty). This is furthered by the South Sudanese government’s failure to implement an effective social services program and minimise local and tribal tensions. Indeed, neither the GoSS nor the United Nations Mission in Sudan has ever had a strategy for the reintegration of returning Sudanese.
So, if South Sudan does secede, the new, independent country will have to work hard to combat these prevailing issues.