GENEVA, Switzerland, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Throngs of southern Sudanese are headed home from the north to take part in a January referendum, the U.N. refugee agency said.
"In the sprawling camps for displaced people around Khartoum, thousands of southerners are packing their belongings and waiting to leave," said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, in a statement from Geneva.
The UNHCR said more than 50,000 southern Sudanese have left the north in the past few weeks.
Citizens in Sudan head to the voting booth in January for a referendum of self-determination for South Sudan. The measure is part of a comprehensive peace deal reached in 2005.
A separate measure giving voters in the region of Abyei the right to pick between the north and the south is serious jeopardy, said Alain Le Roy, U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.
U.N. officials working on a Sudanese panel under U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed a registration process, saying there were few problems reported. Le Roy, however, said the situation ahead of the January vote was reaching a critical stage.
