KHARTOUM, Sudan — Nimuli struggled to rise from a rope bed to greet pastor James Mading Bui at an Episcopal church where she lives in a suburb of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, waiting to travel back home to the newly independent south.
Nimuli is one of as many as 700,000 South Sudanese who have become regarded as dark-skinned, often Christian outsiders in mainly Arabic Sudan since the oil-rich south seceded in July. Verbally abused as “insects” by some Sudanese on the streets, they have no citizenship or residential rights and no idea when they are going to be able to travel to South Sudan.
“It has been a really tough time for us,” Nimuli, a 49- year-old mother of four, said in a May 19 interview at the church, refusing to give her last name for fear of retribution from the Sudanese authorities. “We’ve been waiting for months, unclear of our fate, running out of money and options, and now with no legal status.”
After the south’s independence, Nimuli was fired from her job at the Ministry of Education where she worked as a cleaner for 17 years, her children were forced out of school and the family was given nine months, until April 9, to “regularize their status.”
The public attitude toward southerners in Khartoum hardened as military and diplomatic clashes between the two countries intensified. The governments have become embroiled in disputes over oil, borders and citizenship rights since the south’s independence gave it control of about three-quarters of the formerly united country’s crude output of 490,000 barrels a day.
“Targeted attacks of southerners, whether organized or spontaneous, are on the rise,” Sarnata Reynolds, project manager for statelessness at Washington-based Refugees International, said in an emailed response to questions. “There are regular reports of church bombings, beatings and forced deportations throughout the country.”
The International Organization for Migration has begun an airlift of about 12,000 stranded South Sudanese from Kosti, 186 miles south of Khartoum, to Juba, South Sudan’s capital. Geneva-based IOM has ferried more than 5,000 returnees back to the south so far, said spokeswoman Samantha Donkin.
“Everyone seems quite upbeat about returning to South Sudan despite the challenges,” she said by phone from Juba. “A lot of them felt targeted, felt unwelcome.”
Sudan’s Ministry of the Interior is registering South Sudanese so they won’t be classified as stateless, according to the United Nations. As of May 10, the government had registered 14,000 people, it said.
“However, registration of South Sudanese is not taking place systematically throughout Sudan,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this month. “Also, mixed messages are being sent out about the registration and its purpose.”
In March, negotiators drafted a deal that would grant freedoms, including residency and work permits, to each other’s citizens. A scheduled summit between Sudanese President Umar al- Bashir and South Sudan’s leader, Salva Kiir, to sign the agreement was called off after their two armies clashed.
The U.N. Security Council, backing an African Union peace plan, warned the two countries they faced sanctions unless they stopped fighting and returned to talks by May 16. The deadline passed without the start of negotiations.
The talks will begin Tuesday, Eric Ngandu, a spokesman for the African Union, said in a mobile-phone text message.
Human Rights Watch said on April 21, a group of Sudanese burned and looted a church in the al-Jereif West area of Khartoum. The looters chanted: “We will kill the insects, we will kill the slaves,” as police stood by, the New York-based rights group said, citing witnesses.
“There is a deliberate policy of the government to turn a blind eye to all the harassments that are being done by their security forces” and members of the ruling National Congress Party, South Sudan’s government spokesman, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, said in an interview in Juba.
Foreign Ministry spokesman al-Obeid Murawih and police spokesman al-Sir Ahmed Omar didn’t answer phone calls seeking comment.
While Sudan was one nation, southerners had the right of residency in Khartoum. After a 2005 peace agreement brokered by the United States, Britain, Norway and regional governments ended a 20- year civil war between the north and south, South Sudanese were given the chance to vote for independence in a referendum in January last year. Ninety-nine percent of them approved it.
Relations between the two countries deteriorated to such an extent that the south shut down its crude output after accusing Sudan of stealing part of the oil that is carried by a pipeline to an export terminal on the Red Sea. The authorities in Khartoum said they were collecting unpaid oil fees.
While Sudan’s government allows southerners attending the University of Khartoum to stay until they graduate, some said they are worried about being picked up by members of South Sudanese militias that are backed by Sudan and forced to fight against South Sudan’s army.
“All of us now go home before sunset,” said John, a 20-year-old who refused to give his last name and cut short a brief interview for fear of being arrested for talking to a journalist. “I don’t attend night lectures anymore to minimize my risks.”
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this month as many as 28 southerners were abducted in Khartoum.
“I know many stories of southerners who’ve been arrested and held for some days in police custody for no reason, and were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment,” Pastor Bui said.
About 375,000 people have returned since last year to South Sudan, according to the UN, and conditions have worsened this year.
As many as 4.7 million people in South Sudan, more than half the population, may face food shortages because of north-south violence, ethnic clashes in Jonglei state and the shutdown of oil production, the UN said this month.
Returnees often have to be settled at a transit camp outside Juba because they don’t have any family in the area to support them, according to IOM.
“This essentially means that incoming returnees are likely to remain at the transit site until durable solutions are identified, including the allocation of land for them to kick-start their lives — typically a long and difficult process,” IOM South Sudan Chief of Mission Vincent Houver said in a May 18 statement.
Nimuli said she has members of her extended family in Juba to look after her.
As she waits at the church for IOM to help her move south, Nimuli says she’s suffering from a kidney inflamation and can’t get treatment because she’s illegal and doesn’t have money. Since her husband died in 2002, she’s been the sole provider for her son and three daughters.
“I sold everything months ago because we were told we’ll go back home tomorrow,” Nimuli said. “But tomorrow never came.”
