SUDAN: South Sudan Plans Mass Return ahead of Referendum

South Sudan is preparing to repatriate some 1.5 million southerners from the north and Egypt, ahead of a referendum due next January on whether the south should secede.

The proposals suggest returnees will travel on trains and buses, as well as boats down the River Nile.

Some two million people have already returned to the south since the end of a two-decade conflict in 2005.

However, some aid workers have questioned the plan's feasibility.

The BBC's Peter Martell in the southern capital, Juba, says if the proposals are implemented, thousands of people could be arriving each day to a grossly underdeveloped region struggling to cope with its current population.

He has seen a copy of the plan entitled "Come Home to Choose", drawn up by the south's humanitarian affairs and disaster management ministry.

It lists 11 different return routes.

The proposals stipulate that necessary requirements for returnees must include sufficient resources and security to make the movement possible, with an estimated budget of $25m (£16m).

The return of some 12,200 Sudanese living in Egypt is covered in its own plan.

Tension is high as the referendum draws near on whether Africa's largest country should be split in two.

There have been warnings of possible violence against southerners living in the north if the south, where most people are Christian or follow traditional religions, does vote to secede from the largely Muslim and Arab north.

On Monday, the Southern Sudan government accused the north of switching payments of oil revenue from US dollars to the local currency in violation of their peace accord.

The change deprives the south of its major source of foreign currency, restricting the goods it can import.

Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer, and when the authorities in the north and the south signed their landmark peace agreement five years ago they agreed to split revenues from the industry.

However, while the bulk of the oil lies in the south, the north controls the refineries, the ports and the payments.

A selection of your comments in reaction to this story:

I agreed with the proposal of going home before the referendum because it is better to be poor but free in our own country. The referendum lies in the hands of all South Sudanese including those of us outside South Sudan. We must go home because home is home no matter what it takes. We are tired of being mistreated and used as second class citizens by the Arabs in the North. It is better to eat mushrooms in freedom than to eat meat in slavery.

John Malou Manyiel, Khartoum, Sudan

The mass return of South Sudanese citizens from the north ahead of the 2011 referendum is a real dilemma. Why did South Sudan's government not ask the government of national unity (GoNU) to release all southern officials working in the north to take up the development and reconstruction process? This would have been better than hiring expatriates to take development projects, paying them in hard currency and leaving out the very southern Sudanese who are well experienced and professional in various fields of service. Nothing is encouraging in the south when you discriminate the citizens you claim to have liberated from marginalisation and you yourself, the government in the south, is marginalising these very southern Sudanese. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Lokong Baba, Khartoum, Sudan

The repatriation of the southerners to South Sudan is a welcome idea. Without them, the referendum would be meaningless. It is the responsibility of the South Sudanese authorities to bring them back to their ancestral home and resettle them.

Martin Manyiel Wugol, Rumbek, South Sudan

Why the rush for secession? We are doing just fine in South Sudan since 2005. But there is still a long way to go. Nations can not be built in five years. I have a house in Khartoum where I am planning to move my family from London. I am also planning to move back to Juba, but there are a lot of facilities to be built before families can move back comfortably. I know a lot of other southerners who bought properties in Khartoum and are not planning to sell them. They work in Juba or between Juba and Khartoum. We can build our own country in the south, but maybe in 25 years time. Why can't we have a third choice in the Referendum: 1- Union, 2- Secession or 3- Continue with the current two-nation confederation and have another referendum in 25 years?

Kuku A Rassa Deng, London and Khartoum

This proposal, for me, sounds nice no matter how it sounds to others. I am urging my fellow countrymen to take this chance as a golden one. Come home and decide your destiny and the future for the generation to come. We don't want another generation to go through what we faced betwen 1959 and 2005.

Gonda Kenyi, Kitchener, Canada

I endorse the plan made by my government. This marks the commencement of real life improvements and freedom. May God give the younger generations power to improve their lives across the entire continent for years to come.

Akon N Akon, Regina, Canada