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The independence process in Sudan
A referendum on independence for the south of Sudan took place between 9 and 15 January. The result leaves little room for doubt: with a participation rate of 97%, 98% voted in favour of secession. This is another step towards the pacification of the region. In 2005, after twenty years of civil war between the south and north, a peace agreement was signed which included this referendum and the establishment of joint management of the country's energy resources. The steps that have been taken do not guarantee that the future will be easy, as part of the frontier has yet to be defined. The same is true of the distribution of earnings from the petrol reserves, and the referendum has yet to be held in some areas of the country, such as Abyei, precisely because the region is subject to dispute.