Exodus of Southern Sudanese affects the Catholic Church in the north

By Elario Zambakari

1st February 2011, on the eve of the just concluded Southern Sudan Referendum, thousands and thousands of the internal displaced southern Sudanese who were here in Khartoum and the other big cities in the north started going back to the south.
North Sudan has only two Catholic Dioceses: Khartoum archdiocese and El Obeid. Most of the Christians in these dioceses are southerners and now with the exodus to the south one can tell from the attendance during Sunday masses how Khartoum archdiocese will be without these Christians.

Some of the parishes have been closed due to the fact that the Christians are no longer there. According to Fr. George Gangara, the education secretary of the archdiocese of Khartoum some of the Catholic schools are already closed due to the fact that the students have gone back to the south.

The archdiocese had opened many primary and secondary schools for the internally displaced persons who came from the south with the war had intensified in that region in the early 1990s.

Nearly all the diocesan priests of Khartoum are southerners. Khartoum being the place where Daniel Comboni died, there are more less 30 different Missionary congregations of Priests, Sisters and brothers.

The results from the referendum held from 9-15 January were published on 30 January. The announcement was made from Juba, capital of the future State and based on examination of 100% of votes, 98.83% of the nearly 4,000,000 voters wanted independence.