Citizenship and displacement in the Great Lakes Region. Working paper 9, May 2013
(20 May 2013) The disappearance of Sudan? Life in Khartoum for citizens without rights examines the experience of people living in Khartoum State who identify themselves as being from one of the conflict-affected areas of Sudan. Based on interviews with 117 individuals, the research concentrates primarily on those from the newly independent state of South Sudan, the (now) five Darfur states, and Southern Kordofan state. For decades, marginalisation and neglect of these areas by the government of Sudan has led to conflicts which, in turn, have further exacerbated their economic, political and cultural marginalisation.
As a result, over the past decades millions of people have moved to the capital city in search of services and safety. There, however, the same logic of discrimination that forced them from their homes has been replicated in Khartoum: they have continued to be treated as second class citizens at best, and as non-citizens at worst.
Since the secession of the Republic of South Sudan in June 2011, spaces for belonging – as evidenced by the ability to access one’s rights –have further contracted, hardening the fault lines that separate insiders from outsiders. In the context of the loss of territory and resources, new conflict, and rising opposition, the state has continued to create a polity that is strongly exclusionary.