国际英语新闻：Voter registration for south Sudan referendum begins

"Until now no voter came to the center for registration, probably because today is off and because there are no available means of transportation. Additionally, most of those eligible to register are freelancers and they cannot abandon their work in the morning to come for registration," Osman Mohamed Hamad Al-Imam, director of al-Jiraif registration center in eastern Khartoum, told Xinhua.

He criticized the weak information campaign to inform with the importance of voter registration, saying that "there are no any programs to inform the voters and urge them to register their names. People must be informed that the referendum process is important and will decide the future of this country and that the voter registration is the core of the process."

In addition to the weak voters' turn out, observers believe that the registration process would face many difficulties, including that most of those eligible to vote do not have identification documents.

However, Ajang Muses, one of the SSRC employees, told Xinhua that "the registration supervisors have enough experience to overcome the issue of identification documents."

"At any center there are persons known as identifiers who can trace the origin of any voter," he added.

Emanuel Thomas, a southern Sudanese citizen who registered his name, seemed confident that the southern Sudanese residing in north Sudan would rush to the registration centers to ensure their participation in the referendum on self-determination for southern Sudan.