Blind voter foresees bright future
10 January 2011 – Mateo Lodu Tongun could barely contain his excitement as he waited to vote in the Southern Sudanese referendum at Peiti Polling Centre, some 20 kilometres from the regional capital of Juba. Born in the early 1930s in Peiti Boma, Mr. Tongun lost his sight to a bout of river…
LRA victim arrives by ambulance to vote
11 January 2011 - Tabita Nambugo had been a patient in the maternity wing at the Maridi Hospital for 18 days when the Southern Sudanese referendum vote began on 9 January. She arrived there following a 21 December Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebel attack on her village in Maridi County, Western…
High number of votes cast by third day
11 January 2011 - As the Southern Sudan self-determination referendum entered its third day, a top polling official said initial results from the region could be announced by the end of the month. Speaking at a press conference in Juba, Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau Chairperson Justice Chan Reec…
Over 200 UNV volunteers support referendum
12 January 2011 – Representing the majority of UN electoral and referendum field staff, 214 UN Volunteers (UNVs) from 70 countries are deployed throughout Sudan to directly support the Southern Sudan referendum. Working with the UN Integrated Referendum and Electoral Division (UNIRED), the UNVs…
Border area voting drops, but situation calm
11 January 2011 – By the third day of polling in Southern Sudan's self-determination referendum, voter turnout in Kallagan Payam along the disputed border between the north and south was dwindling. Lack of transportation to the only polling centre in the payam was to blame, according to an UNMIS…
Never too old to vote
12 January 2011 – Akot Chan Chol Ater, 96, never imagined he would live to participate in either this month's self-determination referendum in Southern Sudan or the general election of April 2010. "I thank God for all his blessings and for all things he did for all of us," said the frail but…
First-time voters cast referendum ballots in Uganda
12 January 2011 - Jubilant Southern Sudanese expatriates who settled in Uganda after fleeing Sudan's second civil war flocked in large numbers to polling centres in the national capital of Kampala this week. Voters assigned to the Kampala 1 Polling Centre in the neighbourhood of Namboole started to…
UNSG Panel: Ballots, not bullets
12 January 2011 – Stressing that ballots must replace bullets, Antonio Monteiro of the UN Secretary General's Panel on the Referenda in Sudan visited four polling centres today in the Northern Bahr El-Ghazal capital of Aweil. "I hope that everyone...will understand that basically the most important…
Sultans raise post-referendum concerns to UNSG panel
13 January, 2011 – On the fifth day of polling for the Southern Sudan referendum, local tribal leaders in River Nile State assured the UN Secretary-General's monitoring panel that the process was proceeding fairly, but expressed concerns about post-referendum arrangements. Visiting the two…
Food prices jump in Juba
13 January 2011 -- Food prices in Juba have been rising in recent weeks as some jittery foreign merchants pulled out of the region before the start of voting in the Southern Sudan referendum. The trend began in the first half of December. Several food items have registered increases of more than 50…
Returnees voting in referendum
13 January 2011 – One day before voting began in the Southern Sudan referendum, Khamis Unywok packed up his wife, five children and all their belongings to return to his birthplace. The family boarded a truck bound for the Upper Nile State capital of Malakal under the auspices of the Government of…
Northern artists express solidarity with south, mourn secession
15 January 2011 – Artists gathered in Khartoum today aiming to launch styrofoam boats and doves on the Nile as an expression of solidarity and artistic freedom. But many also mourned the possibility of Southern Sudan's secession after the country's historic referendum. Although the strong wind…