Only weeks ago, international observers and local politicians were outdoing each other with predictions of the horrors to befall South Sudan around the time of its independence referendum. There was talk of mass rape, armed incursions from the north, even a resumption of full-scale civil war. Some reckoned the vote on January 9th would not take place at all. Such fears were not outlandish. Sudan has gone through decades of conflict between Muslim northerners and Christian and animist southerners. Some 2m people had been killed before the two sides, six years ago, signed a peace accord which included a provision to give the southerners an eventual vote for independence. Northern leaders have made half-hearted attempts to derail or delay the creation of a new state. Sudan's defence minister, among others, darkly warned against the dire consequences of secession.
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