Sudan census due to start
2008-04-22 11:43
Khartoum - Sudan on Tuesday shuts down for its first census in 15 years, a milestone in the peace deal that ended Africa's longest civil war, but clouded in dispute threatening to undermine the accord further.
In the 2005 agreement signed by the former warring north and south, the two-week census was crucial to prepare constituencies for national elections and confirm or adjust the wealth and power-sharing ratios in central government.
But the undeveloped south had refused to be bound by the results and rebels in Darfur would boycott the count, both accusing the Arab north of manipulating the census to maximise its control and marginalise the African majority.
Khartoum, assisted greatly by the United Nations, said it had prepared the most comprehensive population count ever held in Sudan, a country almost constantly engulfed in civil war since independence from Britain in 1956.
Disillusionment 'runs deep'
About 60 000 enumerators and 200 observers were to deploy for the population count costing Sudan and the international community $103m.
"The census begins at one minute past midnight on Monday," said Yasin Haj Abdin, director of the central bureau of statistics.
"The planning and field work in the south has been the best possible... They have every enumerator in place and we have the international resources to get best possible census in the south and all of Sudan," Abdin said.
But discontentment and disillusionment ran deep in the south, where the legacy of the war that killed two million people and displaced another four million, was keenly felt despite a flood of refugees returning for the count.
South Sudan information minister Gabriel Changson Chang said: "The level of preparedness was very low and even if counting takes place (Tuesday) its not going to produce the desired results."
Two-decade civil war
His government said it was unlikely to accept the results after the north insisted the survey went ahead - delayed for the fourth time last week after the south complained that ethnicity and religion were not included.
The Arab domination of power in what was Africa's largest country was a major reason for the two-decade civil war between north and south, as well as for the separate five-year conflict still raging in the west.
International observers had raised concerns that significant parts of Darfur - a region the size of France - would be excluded from the count owing to fierce opposition from rebel groups.
"Before peace there is no census," said Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, the strongest rebel group militarily in Darfur.
"My people are not there at home, many of them crossed borders. They're in Chad and concentrated in IDP camps, under trees here and there, in mountains and villages, so what they're doing is meaningless," he added.
The authorities claimed that only three percent of Darfur would be left out of the census, but international observers feared far more would be excluded.