Darfur IDPs are not counted in Sudan census – official
April 28, 2008 (EL-GENEINA) – A Sudanese official stated that Internally Displaced Persons would not be counted during the ongoing census operations due to their opposition to the fifth national census.
Darfur IDP’s in the three states of the troubled Darfur staged protests during the last week to show their opposition to the census operations and the next year general elections. They demand the adjournment of the process till the signing of a peace agreement in Darfur.
Speaking to the USAID sponsored Sudan Radio Service last Friday, the census director in West Darfur, Ms Wafaa Hassan Mansour said the census will not be conducted in IDP camps because they are “not accessible.”
She further said that IDPs have protested the census inside the camps and have threatened to attack census enumerators, the Central Bureau of Statistics has decided to estimate the number of people in the camps and other “unsafe” areas based on information from humanitarian agencies working in Darfur.
She disclosed they will collect data from humanitarian organisations which hold lists of all the displaced in order to distribute food and medical care.
“The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the Sudan population annually without carrying out a census exercise and that is a scientific and legal method. This is known. Regarding the IDP’s camps, our people will get the data from the humanitarian agencies to do their estimations.” Wafa said.
Last week, Hussein Abusharati, the spokesperson of Darfur displaced and refugees told Sudan Tribune that enumerators didn’t succeed to enter to the IDPs camps due to the opposition of the displaced.
“The census takers failed to conduct the counting in the camps even in Otash camp which is nearby the capital of southern Darfur Nyala they came with 20 vehicles but the IDPs prevented them.” He said.
The Sudanese TV turned different reports from the west Darfur to show that the census takers are working in good conditions and visiting the IPDs contrary to what “foreign media” fabricates.
International observers have raised concerns that significant parts of Darfur and not just three percent as claimed by Khartoum will be excluded from the count owing to opposition from rebels.
(ST)
Matueny Muorwel
Darfur IDPs are not counted in Sudan census – official
Basing anger on Census enumerators
The 5th population and housing census has faced the first ever resistance never witnessed in the Sudanese history of censuses. The protest against this ongoing biased and partial census was led by political forces and later followed by the Sudanese community. Pressures from the opposition to cancel it were already unleashed to the media but some critics say it should be allowed to die natural death-which at the end of the day will prove reality. Signs and symptoms of the possible cause of death are predictable; the enumerators faced many difficulties varying from attacks to lack of cooperation according to reports across the country, making job of enumeration as risky as reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza. As of now the census is approaching its closure date but I many people have yet seen an enumerator let alone being counted. In one of the residents in Jebel Aulia County, a Southern Sudanese displaced chief has prepared the names of his people including profiles necessary for census and said he is seeking cooperation from his county’s headquarters in the South to hand over the names. In few words he interchanged with the author, he said that his people spent a long time in this part of Khartoum and benefited nothing besides demolition of their Rakubas, evictions of women on charges of alcohol production and many other inhumane acts that they have witnessed starting from the protest of Islamists provoked by Kokadam declaration in 1986 to police biased ness following the death of Dr. John Garang in 2005[end of conversation] Among the reasons for launching a national population and housing census are to allocate services and power sharing. However, it has made itself clearer with the imposition of this census that the NCP-dominated government is concerned about sharing power; otherwise census would not have been conducted while half of the Sudanese people are living in displaced and refugees’ camps in Darfur, Khartoum and outside the country. To postpone this census was bearing good reasons, see for instance: with the information obtained from the census, say for example status of housing in Khartoum; we will find that most of the displaced persons (in millions) from the South, Darfur, Nuba Mountain and Eastern Sudan are living under towers and in makeshift houses constructed on the plots which are not theirs and to the worse they are jobless. In this situation how can the government improve the living conditions of these people? Anyhow, this is not what concerns the Sudanese authorities, it is conversely the right time for power hungry northern Sudanese elites to conduct census in order not to deliver services but to rob others of their share in national cake through underestimations. And this state in which Sudanese census is held was what the minorities in the north wanted as the only chance to secure their control over the country’s affairs should the marginalized not stand together and protest in totality the outcome of this census. These minorities from whom the ruling elites hail have no resources nor do they work; much of the national economy is generated from the South, Darfur and other underdeveloped areas. The only way to rid of this unproductive area is through decentralized rule in which resources are properties of the producing area and the federal government gets minute percentage from those resources. That is in contrast with the central regime in which the ruling elites drain all resources of other areas for the use of minorities just as the case with the Sudanese government.
Matueny Muorwel is a South Sudanese Journalist based in Khartoum and he can be reached at [email protected]