UN’s Ban Calls for Urgent Talks on Dividing Sudan’s Oil Wealth
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United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Sudanese parties to open talks on how to share the country’s oil wealth as they await the results of a referendum that is set to partition Africa’s biggest nation by area.
Preliminary results from South Sudan’s week-long vote this month on independence show overwhelming support for secession from the north. The referendum was the centerpiece of a 2005 peace accord that ended a civil war which lasted almost 50 years, except for a cease-fire from 1972 to 1983, between the Muslim north and the south, where Christianity and traditional religions dominate. About 2 million people died in the second phase of the conflict.