JUBA, Sudan — Officials on Wednesday said preliminary results show
more than 98 percent of voters in and near Southern Sudan's capital
voted for independence from the north.
The referendum committee
for Central Equatoria State on Wednesday posted their results of the
weeklong poll that ended Saturday. The south was widely expected to vote
for secession.
Referendum bureau spokesman Aleu Garang Aleu said "five or six" of the south's 10 states have reported final tallies.
Southern president Salva Kiir urged southerners to wait to celebrate until complete results are announced in mid-February.
The
referendum was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two
decades of civil war between the largely Christian and animist south and
the mostly Muslim north.