A man prays for peace in All Saints Cathedral in Juba, southern Sudan, Jan. 8, 2011. Around four million southern Sudanese are expected to vote in the coming referendum on Sunday to decide whether the region should remain united with the north or secede to establish an independent state. [Xinhua]

The southern Sudanese residing in north and south Sudan and outside Sudan have the right to participate in the referendum where 60 percent of the registered voters should cast their votes for the referendum to be valid.

If the south voted for the independence, Sudan would enter a six-month transition period when the north and south would negotiate on thorny issues including border demarcation, the status of the oil-rich Abyei region, as well as the division of the national debts and oil revenue.

People waited in queue for hundreds of meters for the voting at the polling station at John Garang museum. Voters danced and sang slogans such as "Freedom is burning" ahead of the referendum.

Deng Ayok, a 28-year-old university student who stopped his study in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, and returned to the south in November, led his family to vote at Juba University Sunday morning.

"I hope the referendum can reflect our will and lead to a permanent peace and stability of all Sudanese people," he said. " We had suffered so much during the civil war. We need dignity and human rights in a peaceful and stable land."

However, the first hour of voting registered low turnout at the polling centers in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Badr-Eddin Hiraiz, Director of the al-Gerif Shareg polling center in eastern Khartoum, told Xinhua that by 9:00 a.m. local time, only one southern Sudanese voted at this center, the biggest in the capital, with 1,088 registered voters.

"There are many reasons behind this weak turnout, including the wave of cold which hit the capital today, and the fact that most of the southerners work at farms, factories and do other freelance works and therefore it is difficult for them to abandon their work to come to the polling centers," he said.

Hiraiz expected the turnout to increase by midday.