"The vote for separation was 99.57 percent," Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the commission organizing the January 9 week-long referendum told cheering crowds in the first official announcement of results.

Those results did not include the votes in north Sudan and the eight countries where the southern diaspora voted, a small proportion of the electorate.

The commission's website reported on Sunday the overall vote including southerners living in north Sudan and other countries was 98.83 percent, but added that this could change.

Final results are expected to be announced early next month.

The vote was promised in a 2005 peace deal which ended decades of north-south conflict, Africa's longest civil war which cost an estimated 2 million lives killed, forced 4 million to flee and destabilized the region.

Reuters