Sudan: head count

Some 60,000 census-takers are set to deploy from Tuesday, in a two-week process to count Sudan's estimated 39 million people.

Sudan's last census was in 1983, before the second north-south civil war broke out.  That war ended in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and it is under that framework that the current census is being carried out.  It is a prerequisite to the process of voter registration, ahead of national elections set for mid-2009.

However, all is not well with the CPA:  the census has been delayed, and problems releasing Khartoum's share of the $110 million operation's costs threatened to postpone it yet again.  Tens of thousands have been returning to areas from which they were displaced by the two-decade civil war in order to be counted, especially to semi-autonomous Southern Sudan.  Other displaced people -- such as the 2.5 million in the Darfur region -- are unable to return home.  There have been calls for the census to be delayed in Darfur, although this is unlikely.  Others protest that the census will omit two details central to conflict in Sudan: religion and ethnicity. 

The census appears set to go ahead, but it is likely to be the subject of serious disputes, and opportunities are rife for divisions over the results to derail progress towards the 2009 elections, and beyond them, the 2011 referendum on Southern Sudanese independence.