JUBA, Sudan — It’s not every day that a beleaguered, marginalized and persecuted people get a chance to vote for their own freedom. On Sunday, southern Sudanese did. Starting in the cool hours of the night, long before the polls even opened, people across this region began lining up at polling stations to cast their votes in a historic referendum on whether to declare independence. Jubilant crowds made clear which was the overwhelmingly popular choice. “I feel like I’m going to a new land,” beamed Susan Duku, a southern Sudanese woman who works for the United Nations. As the sun cleared the horizon and the voting began, the streets of Juba, the capital of…
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Southern Sudanese, in a Jubilant Mood, Begin to Vote on Secession