CAIRO: At least 76 people have died in three days of clashes between rival tribes in Sudan's Abyei region, an army official said Thursday as the referendum on southern independence passed the 60 percent participation needed to make it valid after five days of voting. Polls opened Sunday in southern Sudan, where 4 million registered voters are allowed to have their say on the secession or unity with northern Sudan. The ongoing referendum is the centerpiece of a 2005 peace deal which ended two decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the Christian south, a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 2 million southerners and displaced an additional 4 million. Fighting broke out three days ago between the Arab Misseriya, a northern nomadic tribe that travels through Abyei each year, and the southern Ngok Dinka tribe in the oil-producing border region. Police and youth of Abyei said that more than 26 were killed and 33 were wounded. Abyei had been scheduled to hold a separate poll last Sunday to decide whether to go with the north or south, but it was postponed when tribal leaders could not agree on whether the Misseriya had the right to vote. Former United States president Jimmy Carter, whose organization is monitoring the referendum, said the events in Abyei were isolated and the northern and southern armies were staying out of the clashes. “There are almost uniform reports that it's been a calm, peaceful process,” Carter told journalists in the southern capital Juba. Just under 4 million Southern Sudanese are registered to vote in the referendum, which is widely expected to see the south vote to break away from the north. The result will only be considered valid if more than 60 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots. The deputy chair of the referendum commission said that, according to their figures, the threshold was reached on Wednesday. With 86 per cent of centers reporting their turnout, 2,360,933 voters had cast their ballots, a figure that just exceeds the 60 percent limit, Chan Reec Madut said. According to the referendum commission's timetable, preliminary results will be announced on February 1st. Final results are expected by February 14. Southern Sudan would become Africa's 54th nation on 9 July 2011 if the referendum is passed. BM
