20100925
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudanese people will lose the right to be citizens in the north if their region votes for independence in a referendum, the information minister said, raising fears for southerners living in northern settlements.

Southerners are less than 100 days away from the scheduled start of a vote on whether to stay in Sudan or secede, a plebiscite promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

People from the oil-producing region, embittered by the war and perceived exploitation by the north, are widely expected to choose independence in the referendum, due on January 9, 2011.

Activists have said there are now growing fears about what an independence vote would mean for an estimated 1.5 million southerners living around Khartoum and other northern towns, many of them long-term residents of ramshackle refugee camps.

Information Minister Kamal Mohamed Obeid, from the north's dominant National Congress Party, stoked those concerns by telling state media that southerners would be counted as "citizens of another state" if the vote went for independence.

"If the result of the referendum was separation, then the southerners will not enjoy citizenship rights in the north as they would be considered citizens of another state", he was quoted as saying on the state Suna news agency late on Friday.

OIL

Human Rights Watch this week said minorities feared a secession decision would lead to harassment and expulsions. The rights groups urged northern and southern leaders to promise not to expel each other's citizens after the vote.