23 April 2016•Update: 28 April 2016
By Mohamed al-Khatam
KHARTOUM, Sudan
The results of Sudan’s Darfur referendum were announced Saturday, with more than 97 percent of voters opting to keep the region’s multi-state administration.
Omar Jamaa, the head of the referendum’s commission, said in a news conference that turnout was 90.72 percent.
On Monday, voters in Darfur began casting ballots in a referendum held to determine the region’s administrative status.
Voters had the choice to either maintain the status quo, in which Darfur is divided into five distinct states, or to combine them all into a single region.
The poll was held within the framework of a 2011 Qatar-backed peace agreement signed between the Khartoum government and the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) rebel group.
