DHAKA: Sudan’s Dinka Ngok tribe has held a unilateral referendum to decide whether oil-rich Abyei, a district they inhabit and is under dispute between the Khartoum government and South Sudan, joins either of the two nations.

Reports said on Sunday that the referendum results were expected on October 31, reports Al Jazeera.

The exercise was proceeding peacefully, said Luka Biong, spokesman for the Abyei Referendum High Committee, a civic group that is organising the vote.

The quarrel over Abyei is one of the main unresolved disputes after the 2005 peace agreement between Sudan and South Sudan, which ended a civil war and led to the independence of South Sudan.

Abyei was meant to vote on whether to be part of Sudan or South Sudan in January 2011, the same day Juba voted overwhelmingly to split from the north, as part of the peace accord.

Both the Sudan and South Sudan governments, along with the African Union, which is playing a mediation role over the district, do not recognise the referendum.

The Misseriya Arab tribes, who come to Abyei to graze their cattle and have closer ties with the government in the north, strongly oppose the unilateral referendum.

BDST: 2015 HRS, OCT 27, 2013
RoR/JCK