Delay of Sudan border demarcation may affect census
March 1, 2008 (JUBA) — The delayed demarcation of the contentious border between north and south Sudan could complicate next month’s national census, the head of the southern Sudanese census body said on Saturday.
The census is considered vital for the success of Sudan’s first democratic elections in 23 years which follow a peace agreement in 2005 between the former north-south foes.
“In some areas, administration is divided between north and south. There could be conflict,” Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of the Southern Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics and Evaluation, told Reuters.
He gave an example of the town of Renk. The semi-autonomous southern government considers it part of its territories while northerners living there are demanding to be counted as living in the north.
The national census is expected to start on April 15 for two weeks. The elections are due to take place by mid-2009.
The peace deal that ended 21 years of civil war looked shaky in October when former southern rebels walked out of a national coalition government complaining parts of the agreement, including border demarcation, were not being implemented.
Salva Kiir, president of the southern government, said after crisis talks that the demarcation of the border, agreed to be the same as it was at Sudan’s 1956 independence from Britain, should begin in mid-February.
The southern government’s chief representative to the border committee, Riek Degoal, said on Saturday only the first research phase had been completed.
He said the delay was due to funding shortfalls, administrative and technical problems, and because some members including the head of the committee work only part-time.
Degoal said colonial maps and descriptions of the border had been collected. “(But) we have not yet decided if all the documents are authentic or not,” he told Reuters.
The committee hopes to send its report to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir within a month for approval before the demarcation of the 2,000 km (1,200 mile) border.
He said the distance between any current border mark and the line that his committee will draw was not likely to be more than about 10 km (6 miles).
Sudan’s north-south conflict claimed 2 million lives and displaced another 4 million people. Under the peace deal, southerners have a referendum in 2011 on secession.
(Reuters)
Toposa Boy southerner
Delay of Sudan border demarcation may affect census
Best S,S I agree fully with head of the southern Sudanese census body with out border demarcation there will be no counting you must be so drunk and foolish to go ahead and count people and am very please to see some of our people are knowledgeable to see this things clearly
Thanks god that all southerners are not stupid there are people who understand those things very well
Kur John Aleu
Delay of Sudan border demarcation may affect census
I urge the SPLM-NCP Leadership to speed-up the process of border demarcation so that the National Census exercise of next month is not interrupted in which a lot of developmental changes are expected afterward because National budgeting is always hard to design when the population living in various parts of the country is not known.
Duot Atem de juach
Delay of Sudan border demarcation may affect census
The well known census is going to be
affected by one or many of the following; the countless number of people in various camps in uganda kenya, ethiopia,congo and many others to mention but few. Sudanese talk too much but less action is taken. for how long has people exercise their tongues that the returnees are to be backed but everybody pay deaf ears.Let think twice for a finger couldnot kill a louse. without this outlined problem,there is demarcation.