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International observers say the ballot has been free and fair

Early results from Southern Sudan’s referendum indicate the region has voted overwhelmingly to split from the north and form a new country.

Full results of the poll are not due until next month, but the region is widely expected to choose to secede.

Southern Sudanese people living in Europe have already voted 97% in favour of a new state.

The historic referendum was part of a peace agreement signed with north Sudan in 2005, ending decades of war.

Polling stations opened on 9 January and were officially closed on Saturday evening.

A minimum 60% turnout was required for the vote to be considered valid, a target which had easily been passed by the middle of the week.

The chairman of the Southern Sudanese Referendum Commission, Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, has said more than 80% of eligible voters in the south had cast their ballots, along with 53% in the north and 91% of voters living in the eight other countries hosting polling stations.

He said the referendum would be considered “a good result by any international standard”.

The Associated Press reported a 95% turnout at 10 sites in Juba, which would be the capital of a future Southern Sudan. A sample suggested that 96% had voted in favour of secession.

Southern Sudanese people living in Australia have been given extra time to cast their votes where severe flooding has hampered the process.

International observers in Southern Sudan have been almost universally optimistic, saying the balloting process has been free and fair.

The BBC’s Peter Martell in Juba says that has come as massive relief to the south, for whom this vote means so much.

The process was marred, however, by a deadly attack on a convoy of south Sudanese civilians earlier this week.

The group were returning home to vote when they were ambushed near the north-south border in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei.

The UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has praised “all the people of Sudan for the display of wisdom, patience, and peaceful determination that has characterised the voting over the last week”.

But he warned that Southern Sudanese must continue to “exercise patience and restraint” while the count is carried out.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has promised to accept the results of the poll either way, even if it meant the partition of Africa’s largest nation.

“The referendum took place in an atmosphere of calm with a great degree of freedom and fairness,” Rabie Abdul Ati, a senior official in Mr Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP), told the AFP news agency.

“It is very clear that the party will accept the result whether it be for unity or secession.”

The referendum was agreed as part of the 2005 deal to end the two-decade civil war between Southern and north Sudan.

Correspondents say there has been little doubt that the largely Christian Southern Sudan would opt for secession from the mainly Muslim north.

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.

Sudan’s arid northern regions are home mainly to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in Southern Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own traditional beliefs and languages.

The health inequalities in Sudan are illustrated by infant mortality rates. In Southern Sudan, one in 10 children die before their first birthday. Whereas in the more developed northern states, such as Gezira and White Nile, half of those children would be expected to survive.

The gulf in water resources between north and south is stark. In Khartoum, River Nile, and Gezira states, two-thirds of people have access to piped drinking water and pit latrines. In the south, boreholes and unprotected wells are the main drinking sources. More than 80% of southerners have no toilet facilities whatsoever.

Throughout Sudan, access to primary school education is strongly linked to household earnings. In the poorest parts of the south, less than 1% of children finish primary school. Whereas in the wealthier north, up to 50% of children complete primary level education.

Conflict and poverty are the main causes of food insecurity in Sudan. The residents of war-affected Darfur and Southern Sudan are still greatly dependent on food aid. Far more than in northern states, which tend to be wealthier, more urbanised and less reliant on agriculture.

Sudan exports billions of dollars of oil per year. Southern states produce more than 80% of it, but receive only 50% of the revenue, exacerbating tensions with the north. The oil-rich border region of Abyei is to hold a separate vote on whether to join the north or the south.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.