In the camps, Christianity has become intertwined with the politics of independence and racial inequality. Ironically Mr Turabi’s push for Islamisation has caused a Christian revival and a modern day holy war is under way.This Easter Father Doyle will baptise 80 adults.While he insists most conversions – usually from African animist beliefs – are genuine, he admits Christianity has become a badge for southern resistance. “Even non-Christians wear crosses in the camps.”While mosques mushroom in Khartoum it has been 20 years since permission was granted for a new Catholic church. Relations between the government and the Vatican grow more tense.

While the Church piles in priests as reinforcements the government has paraded two Sudanese priests on television “confessing” to be terrorists, trained by Rome.”In the camps people are told they must convert to Islam to get services,” said a leader of an aid organisation, who also claimed that when the rebels win a victory punishment is meted out in the camps around Khartoum.The injustice spurs on Father Boyle, raised on Irish rebel songs in working- class Coatbridge, who believes his childhood fitted him uniquely for Sudan. It gave him a burning sense of injustice; and an almost unpriestly appetite for a scrap. His willingness to stick his neck out – no one else would take foreigners near Al Salam – has led to endless harassment and arrest.For him it is straightforward. The southern Sudanese have been underdogs since the 19th century when the advance of commerce from the north turned them into slaves. Years of subservience and the dislocation of war have caused widespread alcoholism in the camps.Father Boyle is trying to restore a broken people “I say look the Arabs in the eye when you talk to them. You are as good as they are.”At Dar El Salam Father Boyle has built a handful of schools and started numerous child feeding programmes But conditions remain hard.

Between Al Salam and Dar El Salam a multitude of little hillocks is all that marks the graves of those who have died from hunger and disease.Shelia, 24, says many children in the camp go hungry. She fled to Khartoum when government troops razed her village after taking it back from the SPLA.”If you are an Arab you get the job,” she says. “Even on buses we must stand to give Arabs a seat.”The government’s strategy, says Father Boyle, is to keep the southerners too busy trying to survive to pose any threat.Dr Turabi refers camp critics to Bishop Gebrial Roreg, a southerner and government minister whose unholy combination of politics and religion is said to be an embarrassment to the Anglican Church. In the camps he is despised as a man not content to wait for reward in heaven.In his air-conditioned office the bishop says the government is moderate and tolerant of religious differences.

He can see no evidence of discrimination.He should get out a bit. The measure of southern desperation can be found in a squatter settlement on the outskirts of Khartoum. For a year thousands of people have lived among the rubble of their bulldozed homes, spurning government offers to move them to a desert camp.There is no food or running water People fight with goats for scraps on a mountain of garbage Stalls sell rancid meat But they prefer it to the desert. At least there is the possibility of work, and escape from segregation.. In the meeting rooms and watering holes of Brussels, frustration and anxiety hang heavy in the air The Eurocrats are frustrated as they wait for Tony Blair. And they are anxious about what his accession to power in Britain might bring.