JUBA: South Sudan has readied plans for the return of more than 1.5 million southerners living in the north and Egypt for a referendum on whether to split the country, official documents showed on Tuesday.
The "emergency repatriation program," launched under the slogan of "Come Home to Choose," proposes a budget of 60 million pounds ($25.3 million) for Sudanese returning north to south.
The vote will "require all southern Sudanese IDPs (internally displaced people) living in the north who have expressed their willingness to return home for registration and (to) participate in the referendum," according to the document seen by AFP.
The plan was drawn up by the south’s humanitarian affairs and disaster management ministry.
South Sudan is still recovering from more than 20 years of war with the north, during which about two million people were killed and four million displaced, in a conflict fuelled by religion, ethnicity, ideology and resources, including oil.
Southerners are scheduled to vote in January in an independence referendum, as agreed under a 2005 peace deal. Many expect the south to choose secession rather than unity with the rest of Sudan, Africa’s largest nation.
Under the referendum laws, southerners living in northern Sudan or abroad can vote in the referendum if they are officially registered after proving their southern origins.
"In order for the IDPs to return home and participate in the upcoming referendum, we will require a swift, safe, dignified and sustainable return of more than 1.5 million IDPs from north to southern Sudan," the proposal reads.
Tensions remain high between the mainly Muslim north of the country and the impoverished south, many of whose inhabitants are Christian or follow traditional beliefs.
In June, the US-based Refugees International warned of the risk of violence against southerners living in the north following the referendum.
"Come Home to Choose" stipulates that the requirements for return must include sufficient resources, security and organization to make the movement "dignified and sustainable."
Transport is planned including trains, buses and boats down the Nile river, with 11 different return routes listed.
However, aid agencies have privately questioned the feasibility of such a program and expressed concern over the impact it would have on those who decide to return to the south.
A separate plan proposes the repatriation of 12,200 southerners living in Egypt, with a proposed budget of $3.57 million for transport, travel costs and a repatriation support package of around $290 per person.
"The upcoming referendum would require the participation of the 12,200 southern Sudanese living in Egypt, most of whom have expressed their willingness to return home," the plans says.
"Southern Sudanese did not go to Egypt on a voluntary basis but as a result of the civil war," it reads.
Last week, the south’s humanitarian minister, James Kok Ruea, called on aid agencies and the United Nations to prepare to cope with the potential massive displacement of southerners following the referendum.
About half the estimated four million people displaced during the war have so far returned to the south since the peace accord of five years ago.
But the often high expectations of the returnees have taken a battering because of the lack of services in war-ravaged and grossly underdeveloped southern Sudan.
