Khartoum, Sudan - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has warned that the deal signed by Sudan and South Sudan, under which over a half million southerners will have to choose between going home or remaining as refugees by April this year, will be difficult to implement within the time frame.

'An April 8th deadline imposed on an estimated 500,000 Southern Sudanese to choose between returning home from the Republic of Sudan or staying on in the north will represent a massive logistical challenge to both governments and to the international community,' the IOM said in a statement obtained by PANA in Khartoum Tuesday.

The Organization said it had hoped that an extension to the deadline beyond the 8 April would be included in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that the two governments signed on 12 February. However, changing the deadline did not form part of the agreement.

Until June last year, Sudan was one nation, but a referendum that came after over two decades of civil war showed southerners wanted their own independent entity, South Sudan.

The independence has however left many questions that a 2005 deal which brought peace between the two failed to address, including the question of nationality, the question of sharing oil wealth, border demarcation and tariff and taxes.

But early this month the two sides, currently engaged in talks over borders and oil issues in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, concluded a deal on the repatriation of half a million Southerners living in the north, notwithstanding people of mixed couple.

The estimated 500,000 South Sudanese, who are still residing in the Republic of Sudan, seven months after South Sudan declared independence, will be required to leave the north upon the expiry of the deadline or regularize their stay.

Out of that number, about 120,000 have already been registered by UNHCR and are ready to depart. In addition, there are more than 11,000 South Sudanese returnees currently stranded at Kosti, a central sudan river station- way station in the north- waiting for transport to the South.

'It is logistically impossible to move half a million people in less than two months, in a vast country like Sudan with many infrastructural challenges. We desperately need enough time to guarantee safe and dignified return of these people,' the statement quoted Mohammed Abdiker, IOM's Director of Operations and Emergencies, as saying Tuesday.

The MoU provides for the agreement by the two parties on the modalities of repatriation, the issue of security of the returnees on the road and at the borders, and limits the personal effects that returnees will be allowed to carry. It is expected to expedite the process of the voluntary repatriation and ease the plight of the returnees.

“IOM has been supporting the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan by assisting in the voluntary return of more than 23,000 Southern Sudanese from Khartoum and other cities in the north to their homes in the South.” It said.

The Organization used river barges, trains, trucks and airplanes to this end. A total of 21 passenger barges and 40 luggage barges have been used to date to carry 20,000 returnees from Kosti in the Republic of Sudan to various destinations along the river Nile in the South.

Pana 14/02/2012