Christian missionaries, who operate schools and medical…

Christian missionaries, who operate schools and medical clinics, provide limited social services in southern Sudan.

The earliest Christian missionaries had been the Verona Fathers, a Roman Catholic religious order that had established southern missions before the Mahdiyah.

Other missionary groups active in the south include Presbyterians from the United States and the Anglican Church Missionary Society.

There is no competition among these missions, largely because they maintain separate areas of influence.

The government eventually subsidizes the mission schools that educate southerners.

Because mission graduates usually succeed in gaining posts in the provincial civil service, many northerners regard them as tools of British imperialism. 

few southerners who receive higher training attend schools in British East Africa (present-day Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) rather than in Khartoum, thereby exacerbating the north–south division.