3:57pm UK, Monday January 10, 2011
Angela Barnes, Sky News Online
At least 33 people have been killed in clashes as voting continued in southern Sudan for a second day in the country's week-long independence referendum.
Students demonstrate against the delays of the Abyei referendum in Khartoum
The feuding Misseriya Arab and Ngok Dinka groups of the disputed oil-producing region of Abyei have both reported deaths over the past three days.
Tensions in the district on the north-south border have been rising with the launch of the landmark referendum on Sunday that could see Africa's biggest country split in two.
Abyei had been due to hold a simultaneous referendum on its own future but it has been indefinitely postponed.
It comes amid deadlock between northern and southern leaders over who should be eligible to take part in the vote on remaining part of the north or joining an autonomous or independent south.
South Sudanese wait to vote at a polling station in Juba
In Juba, things stayed peaceful as voters joined long queues in southern Sudan's capital to cast their ballots.
It is expected that the vote result will mean the south will split from the Khartoum-based north.
The divide would deprive the north of most of its oil reserves, which would leave the north dependent on a profit-sharing deal for resources.
Over 75% of Sudan's oil production comes from the south but output passes through a northern pipeline to the sea.
Uncertainty over the future stability of the Sudanese economy has already caused the currency to plummet and the price of fuel and other basic commodities to rise.
Christians chant during a parade in support of the referendum
The referendum was promised in a 2005 peace deal ending a civil war - fuelled by oil and ethnicity - which has been on and off since 1955 between the mostly Muslim north and the south, where most people are Christians.
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.
Southern Sudan is among the world's poorest regions. The size of France, it has only 30 miles of paved roads.
Because only 15% of southern Sudan's 8.7 million people can read, the ballot choices were simple: a drawing of a single hand marked "separation" and another of clasped hands marked "unity".
Results will not be finalised until February.
