Khartoum cancels Sudanese nationality of southerners

President Omar al-Bashir addresses the People's Assembly in the capital Khartoum on July 12, 2011, following the secession of the south and the inauguration of the new state of South Sudan on July 9. Photo/AFP

Sudan's parliament passed a law on Wednesday cancelling the Sudanese nationality of southerners, four days after their homeland proclaimed formal independence from the north, state media reported.

"All the southerners are going to lose their Sudanese nationality directly" because of the amendments to the law approved by parliament on Wednesday, MP Ismail al-Haj Musa told AFP, confirming a report by the official SUNA news agency.

Despite a mass migration back to the south since October -- some 360,000 are already thought to have returned -- more than one million southerners remain in the north, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), many of whom were born there.

The newly amended law, which awaits its third reading on Monday, "deals with cases where Sudanese nationality is automatically cancelled for any person acquiring the nationality of the state of South Sudan," SUNA said.

Musa explained that, due to the registration for January's independence referendum, in which southerners voted overwhelmingly to split with the north and forge their own nation, the national identity of southerners had been established.

More than 99 per cent of those voting in the south opted for independence.

Implications

But only 58 per cent of southerners in the north did so, with many concerned about the implications of secession for their work and residency status.

Prior to southern independence on Saturday, the Khartoum government had already ruled out the possibility of dual nationality for southerners remaining in the north, and dismissed all those working in the public sector.

"For the southerners that want to work in the private sector in the north, they will have to get permission and residency permits," Sudan's top presidential aide, Nafie Ali Nafie, said late last month.

But he also said that there would be a nine-month transitional period, allowing them "to settle their situations."