Africa's Larget Coutry Facing a Split!!!

* Africa's largest country faces split in two
* Concern over clashes in Abyei border region
* President Bashir has promised to accept result of vote
* Sadness, resignation in north
(Updates with Obama comments)
By Jason Benham and Jeremy Clarke
JUBA, Sudan, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Millions of jubilant south
Sudanese voted on Sunday in an independence referendum which
could cut Africa's biggest country in two and deprive the north
of most of its lucrative oil.
People queued for hours in the burning sun outside polling
stations in the southern capital Juba, and many were turned away
as the first day of voting ended in the week-long ballot.
"This is the moment the people of southern Sudan have been
waiting for," southern president Salva Kiir said after casting
his ballot, urging people to be patient as they waited to vote.
The referendum was promised in a 2005 peace deal ending a
civil war which has raged on and off since 1955, fuelled by oil
and ethnicity, between the mostly Muslim north and the south,
where most people follow Christianity and traditional beliefs.
The war left two million dead and displaced four million
people and Southerners view the poll as a new beginning after
decades of strife and perceived repression by north Sudan.
"I am voting for separation," said Nhial Wier, a veteran of
the north-south civil war that led up to the vote. "This day
marks the end of my struggles. In the army I was fighting for
freedom. I was fighting for separation."
Polls closed at 1400 GMT on Sunday but from Monday, voting
hours would be extended until 1500 GMT, the electoral commission
said. Most centres have no power so voting ends at sundown.
While southerners were expected to embrace independence,
Sudan's neighbours fear the split could buoy secessionists in
their own countries and are worried about how the mechanics of
the separation will work.
Northern and southern Sudan have been locked in negotiations
for months over how to settle potential flashpoints that include
a disputed border, citizenship and the sharing out of oil
revenues -- the lifeblood of both their economies.
Hours after voting started, the celebratory atmosphere was
marred by reports of a third day of fighting between Arab nomads
and tribespeople associated with the south in the contested
oil-rich Abyei region that borders north and south.
Norway, Britain and the United States, who formed a troika
to support the 2005 peace deal, welcomed the start of voting as
a historic step in a joint statement, but added: "The situation
in Abyei remains of deep concern".
U.S. President Barack Obama warned against any attempt to
disrupt the ballot, saying: "All sides should refrain from
inflammatory rhetoric or provocative actions that could raise
tensions or prevent voters from expressing their will."
On Saturday he said a successful referendum could help put
Sudan back on a path toward normal relations with the United
States after years of sanctions.

DIASPORA VOTES
In Juba, actor George Clooney and U.S. Senator John Kerry
mingled with dancing and singing crowds dressed up to the nines.
Voters waiting outside one polling station burst into a
rendition of the hymn "This is the day that the Lord has made".
"It is something to see people actually voting for their
freedom. That's not something you see often in your life,"
Clooney told Reuters.
Thousands of southern Sudanese based abroad also took part
in the vote, lining up to cast their ballot in Ethiopia, Egypt,
Kenya and Uganda in an election that offered the chance of a
return home if the south votes for a split with the north.
"It is a historic day today, a day that is going to put an
end to our tragedy," Lee Evaristo, a 48-year-old from the
southern capital Juba, said in Cairo over the singing and
drumming. "I'm ready to go back. As soon as possible."
However, the south does secede it will face its own internal
ethnic rivalries -- the southern army and militia clashed in the
oil-producing Unity state ahead of the vote. Kiir has offered
rebels an amnesty but not all have accepted.
In northern Sudan, the prospect of losing a quarter of the
country's land mass -- and the source of most of its oil -- has
been greeted with resignation and some resentment.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who campaigned for
unity in the run-up to the vote, has made increasingly
conciliatory comments and this month promised to join
independence celebrations, if that was the outcome.
Bashir is the only sitting head of state to be wanted by the
International Criminal Court, which accuses him of masterminding
war crimes and genocide in Darfur, a separate Sudanese conflict.
Emotions also ran high in the north. "We feel an incredible
sadness that a ... very loved part of Sudan will separate from
us," said northern opposition Umma Party official Sara
Nuqdullah.
"We must now work to reassure the northerners in the south
and southerners in the north and the tribes in the border zone
that they will not be harmed," she said, breaking down in tears.