Sudanese consider 'EU model' as solution to oil question

Today @ 17:45 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - An EU monitoring mission in Southern Sudan has issued a largely positive preliminary verdict on last week's referendum on independence, although the border area of Abyei remains an ongoing concern.
Speaking to EUobserver from the northern capital of Khartoum on Monday (17 January), the mission's chief observer, Socialist MEP Veronique de Keyser, described the southern vote on whether to split from the country's northern region as a "credible process".

A Sudanese woman, displaced from her home area of Abyei due to fighting (Photo: United Nations Photo)

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"We are happy and relieved, people predicted great turmoil but thankfully that has not materialised," said Ms de Keyser who heads a team of 104 observers and analysts from the 27 EU member states as well as Norway, Switzerland and Canada.
The Belgian euro-deputy warned however that a strategy was urgently needed to diffuse the ongoing tension in the oil-rich border area of Abyei, where dozens have been killed already this month. "The situation is explosive. If a solution is not found, all the other political issues could be blocked," she said, adding that northern isolation would also have grave consequences.