Juba: People in Southern Sudan have begun voting in a referendum on independence from the north.
The week-long vote is widely expected to result in Africa’s largest country being split in two.
As people flocked to the polls, South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir said: “This is an historic moment the people of Southern Sudan have been waiting for.”
The poll was agreed as part of the 2005 peace dead which ended the two-decade north-south civil war.
The leaders of the mainly Muslim north have promised to allow the potential new country, with its mainly Christian population, to secede peacefully.
But President Omar al-Bashir has warned an independent south would face instability.
A peaceful vote, and an outcome accepted without dispute, could lay the groundwork for one of the Obama administration’s most significant policy successes in Africa.
A voter queuing up in the southern capital said: “This is a new beginning because we vote for our freedom. We have been fighting for two decades but today this vote for separation is also for peace.”
A European Union observer in Juba said that voting appeared to have started well.
A day before voting began; six people were killed in clashes between southern Sudan’s army and rebel militias in an oil-producing region.
An independent southern Sudan would become one of the world’s least developed countries, its population among the poorest and most vulnerable, despite receiving nearly $10 billion in oil revenue since 2005. But the region, which is roughly the size of Texas, has few schools, hospitals and paved roads. Illiteracy and malnutrition remain high.
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