More than 99 per cent 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 today announcing preliminary results.
"The vote for separation was 99.57 per cent," Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the commission organising the January 9th 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 today the overall vote including southerners living in north Sudan and other countries was 98.83 per cent, but added this could change. Final results are expected to be announced early next month.
Thousands cheered and danced after the preliminary results announcement.
"This is what we voted for, so that people can be free in their own country . . . I say congratulations a million times," south Sudan president Salva Kiir told the crowd.
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 two million lives.
Mr Kiir, the head of the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), praised his former foe, Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for agreeing to the 2005 accord.
"Omar al-Bashir took the bold decision to bring peace. Bashir is a champion and we must stand with him," said Mr Kiir, speaking in a mixture of English and the local Arabic dialect.
"The project has not finished . . . We cannot declare independence today," he added. According to the terms of the accord, south Sudan will be able to declare independence on July 9th, pending any legal challenges to the results.
Reuters