An unprecedented number of about 3,000 foreign observers have been accredited to monitor a referendum in Southern Sudan that might draw new borders on the African continent.
Over 3.9 million Sudanese are expected to vote on January 9 to determine whether Southern Sudan becomes an independent state or remains an autonomous region within Africa's largest country.
According to Sudan's referendum law, 60 percent of those registered need to turn out for the vote to be valid.
Russia has sent a team of four officials to monitor the voting at polling stations in Juba, the capital of the Southern Sudanese state of Central Equatoria.
Russia has also relocated a group of four transport helicopters from Chad to Sudan to help the UN mission in the country to ensure security and public order during the referendum.
The referendum is part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended 22 years of civil war between North and South Sudan. The conflict killed an estimated 2 million people between 1983 and 2005, and caused significant displacement of the different ethnic groups in the country.
Southern Sudan hosts about 80 percent of the country's proven oil reserves, which has long made its independence an issue of concern in the North. However, the official Sudanese government has pledged to recognize the results of the referendum regardless of its outcome.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement has urged the voters to support the independence.
MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti)
