If the referendum passes the oil-rich but underdeveloped south will break away from the north.

Unfortunately SPLM leader Kiir is running in south Sudan, not Khartoum, for the presidency of just the underdeveloped south.

But the guerrillas still control wide rural areas in the underdeveloped south of the country used to produce the cocaine that funds their insurgency.

A surge of tribal killings this year has sparked fears for the stability of Sudan's underdeveloped south, still emerging from two decades of civil war.