Jan 15, 2011 / 17:50 pm
Residents of Southern Sudan, which is expected to become Africa's newest country, are expressing gratitude for the peace that has prevailed during a referendum on independence from the north. The country's Catholic bishops have been a leading voice for peace during the vote, which ends Jan. 15.
Sudan has not had many moments of peace as a unified country. During its 55 years of independence, the nation's ethnically and religiously-divided north and south have fought two civil wars in which 2.5 million people died. As the semi-autonomous southern region prepared during 2010 for a vote on the question of full secession, international observers feared that a third war could erupt.
But as the week-long referendum draws to a close, having reached the required 60 percent level of voter participation, residents of Southern Sudan say that their prayers for peace have been answered.
A few isolated incidents of violence occurred between Jan. 7 and 9, between southerners and nomadic tribes with northern sympathies in the oil-producing region of Abyei. But these clashes have not significantly impacted a “very peaceful” atmosphere, according to Fr. Callistus Joseph, project director at Solidarity with Southern Sudan.