Sudan’s NCP assures its Southern members of their citizenship status

December 11, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) announced this week that its members from South of the country will keep their citizenship in the North should the January referendum result in a new country.

The Muslim north and mostly Christian and animist south agreed in 2005 to hold the referendum as part of the peace accord that ended a 22-year civil war in Sudan, Africa’s largest country. The people of south Sudan must choose between secession and staying united with the north.

It is widely expected that the Southerners, bitter after more than two decades of civil war, will opt for establishing their independent state.

NCP officials have warned that Southerners in the North will be immediately stripped of their citizenship right if the South picks separation.

But those Southerners who are NCP members will not be affected, according to the party’s senior official.

“Those who stayed with us and fought with us will enjoy the privilege of Sudanese nationality because they believed in the cause of Sudan’s unity and the common fate between the north and south. The north will be very generous with them,” said Mandoor Al-Mahdi who is the deputy NCP chairman in Khartoum state.

Al-Mahdi added that other Southerners in the North will enjoy rights “but not as citizens”.

But the cabinet affairs minister and the leading SPLM figure blasted the remarks saying that Sudan is not a property of the NCP so that the latter decide who can get citizenship and who gets stripped of it.

Human right groups and other observers urged North and South to take measures to protect citizens irrespective of the referendum outcome.

(ST)