Sudan to announce census results before the end of year

September 11, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan will announce the results of the fifth census before the end of 2008, said the Director of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Yassin Al-Haj Abdin on Thursday.

Abdin further said electronic scanning of census questionnaires has been carried out for 50%, stressing that analysis of data will start next October.

The fifth Sudan Population and Housing Census, a milestone in the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was conducted from April 22 to May 6, 2008. It was the first all inclusive census for people of southern Sudan since Sudan became independence in January 1956.

The conduct of census had been hindered by many problems in southern Sudan and south Kordofan. Also Darfur political forces and rebels called on the government to postpone it until the settlement of the armed conflict in western Sudan.

Recently following Abyei clashes between Sudan Armed Forces and the SPLA, there were reports alleging that census forms were destroyed. But Luka Biong, Southern Sudan government presidential affairs minister dismissed this reports and said all the questionnaires were transported to Juba.

The most recent U.N. estimate for Sudan’s population is 37.8 million but the numbers are difficult to verify because of Sudan’s huge internal displacement and also tens of thousands of Sudanese who have fled fighting over the years to neighbouring countries.

Southerners say they were undercounted in the last census in 1993 at the height of the civil war with millions displaced and vast swathes of the south inaccessible, and there are concerns that despite peace in the south numbers in the upcoming census may not show a big increase.

Minni Minawi, the sole former rebel chief who signed Darfur Peace Agreement with Khartoum in 2006, rejected the latest census and called on the Government to abandon its outcome.

He, as well as the rebel movements, says that there are more than two million displaced and refugees who are not included in the census. Government said it would count IDPs according to lists prepared by humanitarian agencies.

(ST)