20110110
reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - At least 36 people have died in clashes between Arab nomads and southerners near Sudan's north- south border, leaders in the contested Abyei region said on Monday, on the second day of a vote on southern independence.

Analysts say the central region of Abyei is the most likely place for north-south tensions to erupt into violence during and after the vote, the climax of a troubled peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

Southerners are expected to vote to split from the mostly Muslim north, depriving Khartoum of most of its oil reserves.

Senior southern official Luka Biong official condemned the fighting and told Reuters both sides were still trying to settle their bitter dispute over the ownership of Abyei as part of a package of negotiations, including how the regions will share oil revenues after a split.

In a separate, more positive, development, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter told CNN on Monday that Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had offered to take on all of the country's crippling debt if the south seceded.

The offer, if confirmed, would be a significant conciliatory gesture from Bashir and would lift a huge fiscal burden from the south in the early days of its expected independence.

The violence in Abyei followed a warning to both northern and southern leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama not to use proxy forces over the voting period, highlighting international concerns that both sides might be resorting to tactics used in past campaigns.