January 9, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – First day of voting in the landmark referendum on South Sudan independence began on Sunday at 3,000 polling stations domestically and in eight countries abroad, amid reports of massive turnout in the south and low in the north, thanks to mass returns by southerners to their homelands in recent months.

Southern Sudanese families wait to board buses in Mandela area in the outskirts of the capital of Khartoum on January 6, 2011 before returning to their homeland from the north ahead of a key referendum on south Sudan’s independence (Getty)

There have also been reports of deadly clashes that killed at least 49 people in the contested central area of Abyei. However, peacekeepers in Darfur region have reported that the first day of voting has passed without troubles.

Nearly half a century of intermittent civil war between the predominately Muslim-Arab north and the south, where most people identify themselves as Africans and ascribe to Christianity or traditional beliefs, ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

The referendum is one of the CPA’s key planks and allows southerners to decide whether they want to remain united with the north or secede to form an independent state.

The week-long vote requires a turnout of 60% registered voters to validate its results, while the simple majority, 50% plus 1, will determine whether the outcome is in favor of unity or secession.

According to the head of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, the total number of registered voters is 3,930,916, including 3.753.815 in the south, 116,860 in the north and 60,000 abroad.

Sudan’s official news agency SUNA reported on Sunday that 4502 southerners turned up to vote in Al-Jeezira State in central Sudan. The agency further reported that the total number of people who cast their votes in Karari and Omdurman localities in the suburbs of Khartoum State reached 423 out of 4246 registered voters.

Thousands of southerners have packed up their belongings and relocated to the south in the run-up to the politically sensitive vote for fears of being targeted as a result of possible secession.

No incidents of violence were reported during the first day in north Sudan. Even in the troubled western region of Darfur, where as many as 23,000 people have registered, no significant security incident was reported, according the UN-AU Hybrid Peacekeeping Mission (UNAMID) there.

However, reports from the contested oil-producing area of Abyei, which straddles the north and the south, indicated that at least 49 people were killed in clashes between the Arab nomadic tribe of Missireya and the south-leaning Dinka Ngok.

Abyei stands at the heart of a territorial dispute between the north and south and remains a sticky point in ongoing talks between the two sides over a host of post-referendum issues.

Separately in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday hailed the beginning of voting as a “historic step in the years-long process to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the civil war between north and south."

On Saturday, President Obama reiterated his promise to lift economic sanctions on Sudan and remove its name from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism if it ensured peaceful conduct of the referendum and respected its outcome.

(ST)