President Kiir and GoSS and SPLM officials (Photo: GoSS Mission-USA)

Salva Kiir Mayardit explained Sunday to the participants of the Archdiocesan Youth Congress in Rejaf that the results for Darfur are an example because they register a very sharp increase when compared with figures from the 1993 population census.

"With all the security instability that the [Darfur] region has experienced [it still] has a total population of 7.2 million people while during the 1993 population census the total was 3 million people," he said.

President Kiir added that according to the 2008 census figures the population in Western Sudan jumped from over 3 million to 7.2 million in spite of war, displacement and insecurity.

 “How possible is it that the population increased when so many lives were lost during the war and many more took flight from the area?” he asked.

 Mr. Kiir said that the latter is a way to reduce the population of Southern Sudan which in 1983 was over 8 million.

Some South Sudan officials had earlier on warned that they will not accept results reflecting its populations as being less than the third of the country or 11-13 million according to some other officials.

President Kiir added that a sharp reduction in the population in the South to five million is not acceptable.

The Minister of the Presidential Affairs, Bakri Hassan Salih, announced early this week that according to the report of the Census Technical Committee the number of Sudanese population has reached 39 million people.

Mr. Salih pointed out that Khartoum is the most populous state, followed by the Southern Darfur State, Gezira State and then Northern Kordufan State.

However, the SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum suggested that the South will boycott the upcoming 2010 elections if they decide that the census outcome is unacceptable.

The fifth Sudan Population and Housing Census , a milestone in the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was conducted from 22nd to 30th April 2008. It was the first all inclusive census for people of southern Sudan since the country’s independence in January 1956.

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