After decades of conflict with the ruling Islamic north, Sudan's southern provinces will on 9 July become an independent nation. Here, members of Britain's South Sudanese community reveal their hopes for the future

Tomorrow, the Republic of South Sudan will become a newly independent nation. Last January, the overwhelming majority of its people voted in a referendum to break away from the rest of Sudan and establish an independent republic, marking the end – it is hoped – of two generations of conflict.

South Sudan, with its largely non-Muslim population, will now offer a stark contrast to the Arab, Islamic north governed from Khartoum by President Omar al-Bashir. It will be governed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the political wing of the rebel army that fought with the north before a peace accord was signed in 2005. Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of the Southern Sudan region, must now try to rebuild a war-ravaged country, with the focus on constructing a functioning capital in Juba.

During the decades of conflict in Sudan, many people fled, citing either religious or tribal persecution. They ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries or found sanctuary further afield.

An 8,000-strong community of Sudanese exiles live in the UK, mostly in London. Here, six of them explain their hopes and fears for their new independent homeland – and recall the events that led them here.

Martin Muortat, 48, London



I fled from Sudan in the 1980s. The process was difficult: I walked to the Ethiopian border in 1984, then stayed in Addis Ababa until 1986 before flying to the UK, where some of my family had already relocated. I completed a university degree and have been a teacher in London for 15 years teaching maths in secondary schools. But I have been waiting for this moment all that time. I never thought that it would happen.

I'm very emotional. It's been a struggle. We have all grown up on stories of people sacrificing their lives for this moment. I have lost many relatives and this day was a dream for my late father. There are individual tragedies everywhere, but the nightmare is now ending.

You can forgive, but never forget as the memories are so strong. Some families have lost all their children and in our culture to lose a son is a huge tragedy. But we are looking to the future now. We are optimistic and want to make our own way.

I will move back, but I need to build a house first. I have children aged six and nine. They have mixed feelings about returning. We took them on holiday there last year, which they enjoyed. They loved the weather and the freedom. They chased chickens around and said the air smelled different to London. But London is still home to them and they have been affected by the stories of war. They would miss their friends here, plus the schools need improving.

Most of the men have already returned as they want to start improving things. There is a huge skills gap so many have taken up jobs as civil servants. But they are leaving salaries of, say, £40,000, and then earning far less. Some of them have property in the UK so it is difficult for them to abandon all this. However, their gut feeling is that they need to help their country. Many have large expectations, but they have to start from scratch. The change is difficult.

We still have lots of friends in north Sudan. I grew up there. In London, I meet up with my friends from the north. It is the government that has made it so difficult for everyone. They only have one direction and that is Islamic. There is no room for anything else.

Amina Dut, 46, London

I am a member of the Dinka tribe and I come from Rumdek in the south. I left in 1995 when the fighting was terrible. I was studying at university when the war started and was forced to flee to Khartoum with my uncles before making it to the UK, which is where I have lived ever since and where my four children were born. But my husband returned in 1997 to get involved in politics; I last saw him in 2009.

All my brothers were fighting in the war when it first broke out. Our village fell under government control and after trying to hide in cattle sheds we had to join a convoy. I was so scared and it was awful to see so many people dying.

So to hear independence is finally coming is so pleasing to me. Two million people died, but it is not in vain as we are getting our freedom and identity back. But a lot needs to be addressed first. The health and education system needs to be completely rebuilt.

My children want to stay in the UK because they have grown up here. They like going there, but we will have to see whether they could ever want to go permanently. I hope it will be in two to three years because the country needs us. We need to be there.

South Sudan is very different to the north. We are pure black Africans and mostly Christians. I am Catholic. I am not Arab like the people in the north. They came into Sudan much later than us. I cannot live under their sharia law. That's why we have to separate.

Kamal Kambal, 39, London

I come from the Nuba mountains on the border between the north and south Sudan and fled to the UK in 1998 when I became a target thanks to my joining the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

We continue to fight today even though peace first came to the country in 2005. The peace agreement does not answer our questions in the Nuba. The government in the north continues to violate the agreement and is killing our people in the villages. They want to replace us with Arabs. We still feel we're left in the darkness and we are worried. We are proud of independence day, but we are facing a bleak future. There are six million people of the Nuba, but only a million remain in the mountains. We want the international community and our brothers in the south to help us.

The main cause of the problem is the border. Politically, we are of the south, but geographically we have been placed in the north. We should be given a choice, but nobody asked us. We don't want to be Muslims or Arabs. Many of us are Christians.

We really want a no-fly zone over the Nuba mountains, but this is very difficult to achieve. The government bombs our people 30-40 times a day. The UN is there in small numbers, but that is not enough.

People have been killed right in front of the UN and nothing happens.I will have mixed emotions on 9 July. I am happy for our lost colleagues who dreamed of such a day, but we are only really at the very beginning of our struggle.

Hakeem Legge, 52, Wakefield

In the early 1990s, I was training as a chemist in Juba. The government decided all schools were to teach Arabic, so some students went on strike and destroyed some buildings. The government thought we were all to blame so they made us report to them regularly to prove we had not joined the rebels.

In 1993, I left Juba and travelled to Khartoum, but I knew I was under surveillance. My wife had just travelled to Sheffield to take up a university scholarship. Three days after she crossed into Uganda to catch her flight from Kampala, I was detained because they suspected I was a rebel due to her leaving the country. I was held for 10 days and I thought I was going to die. But I was saved when my wife faxed a note from Sheffield explaining her scholarship.

A few months later, the government nominated me as a minister of state for education. It was a tactic to win me round. They tried to soften me up by saying sorry, but I asked for time to consider. Then I met the deputy president socially one day and he quietly said to me that I'd made a big mistake by not taking up their offer. But it was a matter of principle for me not to serve them. These were people who amputated limbs as a form of punishment.

They then invited me to join the army. I agreed, otherwise they would have come for me. But, after I managed to defer my training for a short period, I made a break for it.

I did my homework and worked out that Syria was the only country that meant I didn't need to apply for an exit visa so I caught a flight from Khartoum to Damascus. I wanted to return to another African country, but I didn't have enough money so I applied at the British embassy to join my wife in Sheffield. Once in the UK I applied for asylum and later completed a masters in health promotion at Leeds. I have since worked for Barnados and the Terence Higgins Trust.

In 2009, I returned for the first time to see my mother and visit my father's grave. He was my mentor and my friend and I managed to keep him alive from cancer for a bit longer by sending him money from the UK for treatment. But I never saw him alive again.

I want to return again, but it is conditional on political stability. It's not safe yet. Our late leader John Garang was a true visionary but he died in an air crash in 2005. His deputy, Salva Kiir Mayardit, is illiterate and doesn't understand government. We now have 500 ministers and 2,000 members of parliament and yet we only have a population of eight million people. There is rampant corruption and nepotism. We should have called in the UN to help us set up a government. But the leadership has basically declared a state of emergency that puts all the power into the hands of the president. He is from the Dinka tribe, which is the largest, and he is trying to create an atmosphere where only another Dinka could replace him.

Africa is a continent where politics is very different from the rest of the world. The reprisals for my extended family could be severe for something I say. I cannot return until this all changes. I will not be celebrating on 9 July, or attending the parties. We are only exchanging one oppressive regime for another. There is no clean water for the refugees returning from eastern Africa because all the money has gone into private bank accounts. If I wanted to make my fortune I could return now, but what is the point when people are starving.

Some of my friends ask me why I am so difficult, but if I returned now my impact with regard to improving things would be like throwing a grain of salt into the Seine.

Sakina Dario, 47, Leeds

I come from Chukudum in Eastern Equatoria and belong to a huge extended family from the Dinka tribe. My father was a chief and MP in the area, but passed away at the beginning of the war. He had 10 wives and many children, but he was passionate about schooling and making sure women were educated. So I went to a women-only university to study psychology and teaching English as a foreign language. I graduated in 1989 and worked as a teaching assistant, but, due to my father's influence, I began to campaign for welfare reform. My political activism led to me being arrested and interrogated in Khartoum. The government tried to appoint me to a role in order to silence me, but I managed to flee to the UK in 1993. Originally, I tried to flee to Kenya, but I couldn't get an exit visa so I applied for a scholarship in the UK and US. I chose the UK and my uncle helped with the extra fees. On the plane before it departed, a colleague was arrested and taken away, but I just stayed cool and looked down. I was terrified.

It was a relief to leave, but I was sad to leave my family, plus I felt guilty for not being with my people. But the situation was terrible in Sudan for women. You could get arrested for the way you dressed and women were herded around like animals.

Due to my father's position, I am obliged and expected to go back home. I was nominated to become an MP, but my daughter is still at school here. The schools in Sudan are now worse than when I was a girl. A lot of people with children here like me now have to make this difficult choice about whether to return or not.

Most men have already left the UK and returned, but the women and children remain here. There are now no educated Sudanese women there because a lot of girls didn't go to school during the war. That is a big challenge for our country. But many women feel they need to stay in the UK to earn money because the men are finding it difficult to earn enough in Sudan.

We need to work out a way to ensure that women and the younger generation participate in the process of governance. The government needs to prioritise a better gender balance. The opportunities for women are just not there yet.

Wol Ariec, 49, London



I am the chargé d'affaires for South Sudan in the UK and the director for political, cultural and community affairs. We have two diplomatic staff in the UK at present based in an office in King's Cross, but we hope to move to an embassy soon because the UK recognises our government.

We have been set up now for two years and are very interested in encouraging British businesses to come and invest in South Sudan. Historically, we have very strong links with the UK. We have a huge potential for oil and mining. We need this income to build our roads, hospitals and schools and we want British businesses to invest. Some foreign investors have already made millions of dollars since the end of the war, but so far very few British companies have got involved.

We are keen not to make the same mistakes seen elsewhere in Africa. We don't want to commit ourselves to debt. We don't want to be a liability. Investment capital is what we really need, not loans. It will be the people who decide how our oil revenues are spent. The north is still an important partner for us so we have to maintain a relationship. We have no choice. Khartoum needs to understand this. We all still have family connections in the north.

We also have to maintain our national unity in the south. Our leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has kept us all united. We cannot deny that we have challenges, though. Everyone has a gun now, whereas before it was just spears and sticks. We are a nation of warriors and have a culture where men must prove their manhood and show they are stronger than others.

But people also want peace. They are so tired of war. We are a democratic country with an elected government.

We are very grateful to the UK for welcoming us during the war. But we must return home now and enjoy the fruits of South Sudan.



Waging Peace is a human rights NGO campaigning against genocide and systematic human rights violations in Africa and helps Sudanese refugees in their asylum cases.

• This article was amended on 20 July 2011 to include the endnote above.