LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
In Sudan, voting starts today in a referendum that will likely break that nation in two and create the world's newest country. It's an oil-rich but deeply impoverished region. Six years after a U.S.-brokered peace deal ended decades of conflict between Sudan's North and South, Southerners are choosing whether to go it alone as an independent nation.
NPR's Frank Langfitt is in Southern Sudan, where he has spent the day out at village polling stations. And, Frank, where are you and what has your day been like?
FRANK LANGFITT: Well, right now I'm at a place called Kulipapa. It's a small village, maybe 600 people, about an hour's drive out of the Southern Sudanese capitol of Juba. And people started showing up here around 7:00, polls opened at 8:00. And just the scene is quite something. It's just people are getting together under a tree and casting their votes. I went on and visited about five or six polling places, things seem to be going pretty smoothly so far.
HANSEN: Tell us a little bit more about Southern Sudan. I mean, it's about as large as France. But, as I mentioned, it's deeply impoverished. In fact, it only got paved roads about four ago. Gives us more description of the place.
LANGFITT: Absolutely. Let me describe the drive out here this morning. We left the tarmac road and there's not that much of it in Juba, and then you're on dirt road all the way - lots of deep ruts. And you would see people riding their bikes. They actually can't even ride their bikes on the road, so people who gather wood would be, like, loading on the back and walking down the road, with wood on the back of their bike 'cause they couldn't ride without falling over.
There aren't many schools out here. It's mostly scrub. The houses are made of wood and thatched huts. There's no - water, you get from the stream. It's about the best you can do. So it really is incredibly underdeveloped, even by, you know, East African standards.
HANSEN: There have been clashes between rebel groups and the Southern government forces in the past few days. Has that had an affect on today's balloting - the voting? You seem to say it's peaceful so far.
LANGFITT: So far. Of course, keep in mind, it's a huge swath of land so anything can be happening, you know, hours away by flight and you wouldn't know it. But going south of Juba, everything is very calm. You do see soldiers. They have AK-47s, but they're very relaxed and that's really basically a remnant from the war. People down here are fine.
I think people are a little more concerned as you get up towards the border area with the North that there could be clashes with rebels, there could be clashes with Arab militias coming in from the North.
But so far, I think people have, coming up to this vote, people have been increasingly confident that Sudan would be able to do something its never really been able to do before. And that's make a big, big political decision without a lot of bloodshed.
HANSEN: As a whole, Sudan is Africa's largest nation. If the South chooses independence, the North will lose a third of its land, millions of people, most of its oil wealth. Any idea what is anticipated after the vote?
LANGFITT: Well, I think that's really the tricky part. The North, as you said, is going to lose a lot of power and they're in the middle of negotiations over revenue sharing on oil, exact demarcation of the border, and that's where things could get dicey.
There's also an area called Abeiya, which is a disputed area on the northern side of the border. And they just have figured out that mostly Southerners live there - they want to be a part of the South. They haven't been able to resolve that conflict over who should actually get that section.
So, so far, things are peaceful. But I think in the coming weeks and months, people are going to really be keeping an eye on this place because not all these big issues have been resolved yet.
HANSEN: And the results won't really be available for a quite a while, right?
LANGFITT: They won't. I mean we won't hear final results for a number of weeks. But the fact of the matter is - this is my second visit to Southern Sudan in two months - I've never met a single person in the South who's going to vote for unity.
Everybody is bitter about the war. They want their independence. They want to be their own country.
HANSEN: NPR's Frank Langfitt in Southern Sudan. Frank, thank you very much.
LANGFITT: You're very welcome, Liane.