التاريخ: 2008-05-01
Conducting the 5th Population Census of the Sudan is part of the constitutional requirement for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. From the 22nd of April Sudanese of all walks of life, religious persuasions, class, adults and children, men and women, boys and girls heeded the historic and all important call to enroll, stand up and be counted. An army of 60 000 enumerators steadily swept households across Sudan from that day and continue on the fifth day to undertake this arduous and demanding task.
Some started from the very early morning hours of the 22nd of April enumerating people in hospitals, prisons and the homeless. Many people were amazed by how elaborate this activity can be and for the first time were able to confront what it requires and takes to undertake a census. It is usually defined as the biggest mobilization in times of peace. The Census has the blessings of the first citizens of the Government of National Unity and the Government of the South.
The media has provided a very balanced view of how the census has progressed and where there are difficulties they have kept the public informed and clarified a number of important issues regarding this undertaking.
Now that the census has begun and it is in its fifth day of being undertaken, some of the issues anticipated and communicated from earlier on may now be coming face to face with households, individuals and the media and require to be further clarified and communicated to the public on a continuous basis.
On the 22nd April it was correctly reported by electronic media that South Kordufan was not prepared to participate in the census, unfortunately this message persisted in the Khartoum Monitor of the 24rd of April. Contrary to this unfortunate reporting by the Khartoum Monitor, the government of South Kordufan as of the 23rd of April had agreed and was participating fully in the census. It is unfortunate that the Khartoum Monitor failed to inform the public of this turn of events in South Kordufan.
We have also learnt of the destruction of census materials as a consequence of inter clan fighting amongst the Dinka of Luac. We have sadly learnt of the extensive loss of life of the Dinka people who were caught in this fight and trust that the affected families will recover from this sad and regrettable loss. The census offices and officials continue to function despite these difficulties and replacement materials have been dispatched so that the acts and consequences of violence do not disadvantage the Dinka people. So the census will continue to account for all peoples of the Sudan irrespective of their social, religious or political circumstances. The Census respects them all and appreciates the reciprocal co-operation they have received so far and continue to receive in the future.
We have further learned of the students and Father who had questions about the Census. Let us clarify the situation here. The Census as we have already explained over and over again, will in the first instance employ locals because it makes business sense for the success of the census to do so. So the Father and the students were actually free to apply, be short listed, tested for proficiency, trained and deployed as enumerators. This process of recruitment started a number of months ago and we do not have evidence that the Father and students applied to be part of the team of enumerators. We appreciate their enthusiasm to act as enumerators, but there has been an open prescribed process they had to follow in order for them to be part of this historic census. We are not going to leave them out, they should participate by offering to be counted just as much as when they would be enumerators, they would expect others to be enumerated. They should not be left out.
The natural problems brought about by rain and flooding are just as challenging but our enumerators and the Sudanese people are determined to overcome and enumeration will be successfully concluded in the Sudanese territory in its entirety.
We have also learnt of some of arrests of our international guests who are handling monitoring in the different parts of the country. We regret that this happened and we have informed the governors of the various states that they should have them speedily released and this has already happened.
We have had the benefit of people from several countries monitoring our census, and these include from Africa: Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Nigeria. From the Middle East is Jordan, from Asia and Central Asia, we have Indonesia and Azerbedjan respectively and from Europe there is France and the Americas we have Canada.
The 5th Population of Sudan is very unique, because not ever have so many nations and international bodies participated in an endeavour such as the census as they have done in Sudan. Perhaps the way Sudan has taken the step towards peace will go down as pioneering and worth emulating by others.
For now we wish to call on the Sudanese public to continue supporting the enumerators, the media to continue reporting and doing so fairly and our enumerators in the field and monitors to continue doing the commendable work. Victory is visible, near and certain.
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