20110110
reuters

MAYO CAMP, Sudan (Reuters) - Fatma Abdallah Deng fears she may become one of the last southern Sudanese living in Khartoum's slums, as her neighbours move south to what they expect to become a new independent homeland.

South Sudan's referendum on secession was promised under a 2005 north-south peace deal ending Africa's longest civil war.

Most expect the south to vote to break away. And aggressive rhetoric by northern officials has led many southerners to leave the north, fearing discrimination in the aftermath of the split.

In Khartoum's slum camps, which stretch for miles into the desert, most residents are people who fled fighting in Sudan's south and the western Darfur region. For decades they have asked for electricity, running water and other services.

What they often got instead was the bulldozing of their homes by authorities who want the land for the capital's fast-expanding businesses and population.

"We are second-class citizens. If I was first class I'd get services, help, jobs, but we don't," said Deng.

She could be a poster girl for unity. Her grandmother was from Darfur, her mother from the north, her father from the south and she married a man from the central Abyei region.

She says she's not going back home to live with her husband in Abyei, one of the most underdeveloped parts of Sudan.