Sudanese government and rebels signed a permanent cease-fire deal Friday and endorsed details on how to implement their peace plan to stop a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
In Khartoum, according to the AP, thousands of southern Sudanese took to the streets, singing through loudspeakers and waving the rebels' green, black, red, white and blue flag with a golden star. "The peace deal is the beginning of real independence from Sudan," said Qamar Hasan al-Taher, a member of the main southern rebel group Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
Officials from both sides inked the two protocols in the Kenyan northwestern town of Naivasha in the presence of Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir, his South African peer Thabo Mbeki, and Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori.
