KHARTOUM, April 14 (Reuters) – Sudan’s former north-south foes avoided a collision over a national census and agreed on a new date of April 22 after crisis talks which ran late into the night, a former southern rebel official said on Monday.
Sudan’s south withdrew from the census, due to begin on Tuesday, at the last minute saying they wanted millions of southerners to return home first and questions on ethnicity and religion to be reinserted in the questionnaire.
The north sharply criticised the move. The census, a key part of a 2005 north-south peace accord, will be used to help define wealth and power-sharing ratios and to mark out constituencies ahead of Sudan’s first democratic elections in 23 years due in 2009.
Source: Reuters
By Opheera McDoom
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