Officials: 23 dead in Sudan clashes

KHARTOUM, Sudan - At least 23 people have died in clashes with Arab nomads near Sudan's north-south border, leaders in the contested Abyei region said on Monday, on the second day of a week-long referendum on southern independence.

Analysts have cited Abyei as the most likely place for north-south tensions to erupt into violence during and after the vote, the climax of a troubled peace deal that ended decades of civil war.

The south is expected to split from the mostly Muslim north, depriving Khartoum of most of its oil reserves.