Mick Hartley

Nobody knows how it's all going to turn out, but this article, from the UN's IRIN news agency, outlines a number of possible scenarios resulting from the expulsion of the aid agencies. For a start, there's a threat to the stability of the fragile North-South coalition:

Though partners in a national unity government since a 2005 peace deal, the North's National Congress Party (NCP) and the South's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) have been at odds over the border demarcation, distribution of oil revenue and timing of elections.

"The [expulsion] decisions were made by the NCP without consultation and against the will of the SPLM and that certainly puts an additional strain on relations between the two parties," Lacher said. "The relations between the two are very volatile, very fragile, and on these relations depends the big question whether the North and the South will go back to war in the next few years."

Relations are especially tense along the border, where the heaviest fighting took place. While the government has argued that the expulsions apply countrywide, the Southern government has encouraged NGOs to continue working there.

But in contested areas along the border, especially three "transitional areas" singled out in the peace agreement – Abyei, the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan state, and Southern Blue Nile state – it is unclear whose rules prevail.

"We are telling [the NGOs that the decision to expel them] is null and void in these areas, and yet they were chased away by security," says SPLM spokesman Yien Matthew Chol.

Pushing NGOs out of areas desperately needing aid, he said, could provoke a reaction from the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

Then there's the possibility that many refugees may make their way over the border to Chad, or be expelled there by the Sudanese government:

Sudan and Chad are already engaged in a proxy war – each supporting rebels trying to topple their respective governments. Analysts fear relations could deteriorate, as some of the 2.7 million people living in Darfur's camps travel over the border.

"There are 250,000 Darfuri refugees in Chad. If you had some of the big camps in Darfur emptying and all deciding to go into Chad, you could quite quickly double the number in Chad," says one aid worker, who requested anonymity.

Thomas-Jensen [a policy adviser with the Washington-based Enough Project] says that could be just what Khartoum wants. In an attempt to defeat JEM, the government will try to bring down Chadian President Idriss Déby, and housing refugees who compete with local Chadians for natural resources will make Déby more unpopular.

"The preferred strategy for [Khartoum] would be clearing out the camps and forcing people to go home – a knockout blow in Chad and weakening JEM," Thomas-Jensen says. "They think they can end this war and demonstrate to the international community that humanitarian assistance wasn't really necessary anyway and that ultimately it's not the nightmare scenario everyone thinks."

But an increased Sudanese presence in Chad could do just the opposite…by facilitating Chadian mobilisation of Sudanese rebels, thus intensifying the fight.

If the absence of services does force Darfuris over the border, "they will likely go soon, before the rainy season makes travel … far more difficult", CARE, one of the expelled agencies, recently warned.

According to the aid worker, whose agency had informal talks with the Chadian government, Chad may attempt to close its border to pre-empt any such movement, causing relations to further deteriorate.

Meanwhile the aid workers themselves are being targeted:

"Everybody is scared," says the aid worker, who worked for one of the expelled groups. "Staff have been harassed, interrogated; had all their personal cameras, laptops, phones stolen; been threatened with arrest; had their passports taken off them; had Sudanese newspapers print their names and accuse them of being spies. This all happened hours after we were reassured yet again by the government that nothing would happen."

Remaining NGOs were "scared they will be next" and were therefore less likely to speak out in the future or to engage in sensitive programme work, including counselling and medical support.