Over 99 percent of south Sudan votes to separate

[EMT]

More than 99 percent of voters in Sudan's south chose to separate from the north in a plebiscite intended to end decades of civil war, a referendum official said on Sunday announcing preliminary results.

"The vote for separation was 99.57 percent," Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the commission organising the Jan. 9 week-long referendum told cheering crowds in the first official announcement of results.

Those results did not include the votes in north Sudan and the eight countries where the southern diaspora voted, a small proportion of the electorate.

The commission's website reported on Sunday the overall vote including southerners living in north Sudan and other countries was 98.83 percent, but added that this could change.

Final results are expected to be announced early next month.

The vote was promised in a 2005 peace deal which ended decades of north-south conflict, Africa's longest civil war which cost an estimated 2 million lives killed, forced 4 million to flee and destabilised the region.

Five of the 10 states in Sudan's oil-producing south showed a 99.9 percent vote for separation and the lowest vote was 95.5 percent in favour in the western state of Bahr al-Ghazal which borders north Sudan.

UPDATE 2-Over 99 percent of south Sudan votes to separate | News by Country | Reuters

 

[Not_Yet_Uhuru]

Congrats to the people of the new land, the country of the people of South Sudan, no favour would give u the success u have achieved.

Next move would better be Z'bar, since no statehood autonomy inside what is termed as 'united republic of tz'
yet zbar has all particulars designated for a full sovereign state!

 

[m_kishuri]

Southern Sudanese soldiers await the arrival of Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika at the airport in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba on Wed. Jan. 26, 2011. Mutharika is the current chair of the African Union, a body that has been deeply engaged with southern Sudan up to and through its recent referendum on independence. Mutharika is the first head of state to visit southern Sudan since the referendum concluded on January 15, 2011. Preliminary results indicate that southerners voted heavily for independence.
*

 

[EMT]

Hapo ndio imetoka. Nothing Northern Sudan can do now. The people of Southern Sudan have rightly and emphatically exercised their right to self-determination. Wasiwasi wangu ni kuhusiana na watu wa Darfur. The have been subject to suffering by their fellow countrymen from the north.

 

[Saint Ivuga]

watu hawataki mchezo sasa hivi mAMBO YA KUONEWA YAMEISHA

 

[EMT]

Watu wamechoka na ukandamizaji