Southern Sudan celebrates its vote for independence and looks forward to the birth of a new nation:
Southern Sudanese celebrate the birth of a new nation
Presiding bishop welcomes independence vote
From Episcopal News Service online
Celebrations for a new nation rippled throughout Southern Sudan as election officials confirmed that nearly 99 percent of voters in the referendum had chosen independence.
“There is great joy in Juba today at the official announcement of the results,” Robin Denney, an Episcopal Church missionary based in Juba, told Episcopal News Service via email Feb. 8. “People huddled around radios and televisions at 7 p.m. last night to listen to the official ceremony.”
The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission announced in Khartoum on Feb. 7 that 98.83 percent of voters had chosen to secede from the north. The turnout of registered voters was 98 percent.
“But even as people congratulate each other today, conversations turn to the future,” said Denney, an agricultural consultant to the Episcopal Church of Sudan.
Sudan now enters a transitional period with the official start of a new nation scheduled for July 9. But many issues are still to be resolved, such as the sharing of oil revenues and border demarcation between the north and the south.