The effect of differential access to accommodation on the Dinka migrants in Khartoum ?

Abstract

Immigration into the three towns of Khartoum, Khartoum North and Ondurman has been a monopoly of Sudanese from other provinces of the north for many years. Even after the relaxation of movement between the different regions, few southerners ventured Khartoum. More than seven years ago, a second civil war broke out. Its consequences in the South have been a wide-spread devastation of both rural and urban areas, a progressive increase of war and famine related deaths and the upsetting of inter-ethnic harmony in the transitional zone as an echo of the political situation in the country. As a survival move, southern Sudanese fled from their towns and home villages in massive waves. Arriving in Khartoum, which was already congested with overstrained social services, they joined an existing body of impoverished population, which has settled in virtual shanty towns scattered throughout the greater metropolitan area. Disadvantages emerging from the economic exigences of their forced migration have been sustained within the general framework of government policy implementation as regards settlement in Khartoum with only an ambiguous reference to the distinctness of their ordeal. The result is that they become more disadvantaged then others. This paper examines the factors that are operating in the housing choice and residential location of Dinka ethnic group migrants using the example of Gereif West and Suq el Markazi. The result shows that the residential location is strongly affected by the response to an immediate objective situation, while the choice of tenure reflects the underlying function of the migrants' attitudes towards permanent stay in the town.