Thousands of south Sudanese started registering for their long-awaited independence referendum today in the first concrete step towards a vote that could split Africa's largest country in two.
The move came as northern and southern leaders agreed they would form a "soft border" allowing the free movement of trade and nomads between their territories in the event of a separation, as part of a framework agreement to resolve a list of disputes between the two sides.
The referendum on whether the oil-producing region should declare independence, scheduled for January 9th, is the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south conflict - Africa's longest civil war that was fought over ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil and that killed two million people.
Analysts widely expect southerners embittered by the long war to vote for secession.
Southern president Salva Kiir, surrounded by chanting crowds and drummers in the southern capital Juba, was among the first to sign up for the vote, a Reuters witness said.
"We will vote on January 9th. People must come out en masse. Otherwise people would have been fighting and dying for no cause. The referendum is done only once," Mr Kiir told the crowd.
Officials with megaphones ranged the streets of Juba in the morning calling on people to register. One unofficial vehicle blared out a pro-independence song: "It's the promised land and the promised land is coming".
The pro-independence mood came in the face of a campaign led by Sudan's Khartoum-based president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for southerners to choose to stay united with the north.
Southern leaders have accused the north of trying to delay and disrupt the plebiscite to keep control of the south's oil reserves, and warned there is a risk of a return to conflict. Bashir has dismissed the accusations and promised to accept the result of the referendum.
"The country is facing a crucial stage of its history," the head of the referendum's organising commission Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil told reporters ahead of the start of registration.
Southerners also will be able to register in the north and eight countries outside Sudan.
African Union mediators said northern and southern leaders signed a framework agreement yesterday setting out the terms of negotiations to resolve a list of disputes including how to share out oil revenues and national debt after a split.
In the agreement, both sides vowed not to return to war, to give people the right to choose their citizenship after any split and to demarcate their disputed border.
Reuters