South Sudan-Exiles Cast Ballots

South Sudan exiles cast ballots, dream of return

January 9, 2011 4:51:28 PM

SUDAN-REFERENDUM/DIASPORA (PIX, TV)

Source News Feed: Reuters World Service

* Thousands of Sudan exiles vote in neighbouring countries
* Many still live in refugee camps in Kenya, Ethiopia
* Southern government eager for migrants to return home
By Aaron Maasho and Alexander Dziadosz
ADDIS ABABA/CAIRO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Ras Lumumba David, dreadlocked and jubilant, danced outside a polling station in Ethiopia's capital where south Sudanese exiles were casting votes in a referendum on their homeland's independence.
"Today is my birthday, the birthday of south Sudan," the 50-year-old said as the music of Bob Marley blared over speakers outside the station. "I've been away for 35 years. I've felt like a bird that couldn't land on earth."
Thousands of southern Sudanese lined up to vote in Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya and Uganda on Sunday, elated by the prospect of an independent south and a long-awaited return home, despite the myriad challenges the new nation is likely to face.
The vote was promised by a 2005 peace deal which ended decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the south, where most are Christian or follow traditional beliefs. Some 2 million people died and 4 million fled during the war.
The southern government is eager to get migrants to return to help build the new nation, although fears of renewed fighting have made some hesitate.
At the opening of the week-long vote, southern voters abroad appeared overwhelmingly buoyant, waving south Sudanese flags, chanting and cheering as the vote proceeded.
"Today is a new day," a group of southern Sudanese voters sang in Arabic as they danced in the dirt road outside a polling station in a southern Cairo suburb. "I'm not going backward, I'm moving forward, forward to freedom."
"It is a historic day today, a day that is going to put an end to our tragedy," Lee Evaristo, a 48-year-old from the southern capital Juba, said over the singing and drumming. "I'm ready to go back. As soon as possible."

JUBILATION
John Loding, a 25-year-old refugee in Cairo, said he was eager to go back as soon as the south split from the north. "They (the north) don't respect the dignity of the southerners. They don't consider southerners as human," he said.
More than 3,000 Sudanese registered to vote in Egypt and about 7,300 more signed up in Ethiopia, where many still live in refugee camps that sheltered tens of thousands at the height of the civil war. Thousands more voted in Kenya and Uganda.
Nyachin Lual Puot, a 55-year-old refugee in Addis Ababa, recalled years of hardship after she fled her village in Sudan's Upper Nile state and walked to the camps in western Ethiopia.
"We have been suffering for a long time," said Puot, whose husband and two sons were killed during the war. "This is the day me and my family longed for. I can now die in my homeland."
Returning southerners are likely to face problems ranging from scarce transport -- south Sudan has just 60 km (40 miles) of asphalt roads -- to the threat of conflict over issues like oil, Nile waters and the new border.
Hundreds of excited voters streamed to polling stations in refugee camps in northern Kenya before voting officially opened, Philip Ndeng, a referendum coordinator, said.
Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka visited a polling station in the capital Nairobi, telling reporters the voting was the culmination of several years of hard work to ensure that the peace process in Sudan would not stop.
Outside the station, 23-year-old Julia Anai waited to cast her ballot as southern Sudanese musicians played.
"In our own country we live as if we are in a family with two siblings where one is being treated well and one is not being treated well," she said. "It is better we move on and look for our own ways." (Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri in Nairobi and Noor Ali in Isiolo; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz in Cairo; editing by Mark Trevelyan)