Hello, my friends. First of all, I want to apologize to all my friends at lang-8 for being absent for this long period due to the requirements in my last year of college. No doubt that I miss you all. I pick up this topic because everybody here is talking about the referendum which takes place in sudan these days. To the people who don't know much about Sudan, it is the biggest country in Africa and located on east side of Africa; south of Egypt. My country has struggled with political instability and prolonged wars since being liberated from the British 50 years ago. Unfortunately Sudan was born with wars and the most harmful one was in South Sudan. That war is considered as the longest war in the history of Africa or modern history. The war continued through 50 years after liberation, killed two million Sudanese citizens, and caused four million Sudanese citizens to emigrate due to the paralyzed economy we had during this ugly war.

Sudan is a country of different races, languages, and religions, but specific parts in the north are more educated more than other parts of Sudan. This is because during British rule the south and west of Sudan were closed areas and the government didn't allow any cultural developmental. So, soon after liberation the Sudanese found themselves with big challenge of how to rule this wide country where the north Sudanese were more educated. The government was ruled by them and other citizens felt like this government doesn't represent them. The biggest historical mistake is that this government did not change British policy of closed lands. As result of this huge mistake, the racism grew between Sudanese populations and rapidly the southern Sudanese took up arms to get their rights in Sudan. At that point, no Sudanese, including southern Sudanese, had no the idea for a separation. They just wanted their rights in their country as whole Sudan. And, as days go by, and wars burned houses and killed children and women, the idea of separation from Sudan arose. In 2005, the happiest year of Sudanese history, the government and (splm) stopped the war in South Sudan the Nifasha Peace Agreement has born. The government promised a lot political changes: the system became democratic and a successful election also occurred. Southern Sudanese can rule their own lands by the new federal system. In the Nifasha Peace Agreement, the government sponsored the referendum right after six years of the treaty. This period was supposed to be the rehabilitation period of the wars affect on the south. The south took more than 50 percent of the oil to rehabilitate southern Sudan by SPLA. which role the south and Due to the bad situation in the south and huge corruption, not many changes took place of south in health and education and most of the money was spent on south Sudanese army. Due to the environment which lacks any trust, now the 6 years is running out fast and the Sudanese face a referendum after one month from now. The news is not good about the south, because a lot of politicians see the separation as the start of a new phase of war in Sudan because most of the oil in Sudan lies in the boundaries between south and north. And these boundaries have not been defined yet, so the Sudanese are worried about witnessing another endless war. The situation is very tense and everybody is expecting the worst, but there is hope that the referendum will lead to unity. And if that occurs, it will be the true liberation of Sudan and a promising future. We pray for our children to be raised in a united Sudan without bloodshed.

thanks for reading :-)