* Many northern Sudanese sad about split
* Growing number of northerners also want secession
* Northern police crackdown on dissent
KHARTOUM, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Shrouded in black cloth, the home of Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s first leader Ismail al-Azhari is transformed into a symbol of mourning in Khartoum as the south votes in a plebiscite likely to split Africa&${esc.hash}39;s largest country for ever.
Southerners are deciding their future this week in a referendum agreed as part of a 2005 north-south peace deal ending a civil war that had simmered since 1955 with the loss of some 2 million lives.
Jubilation and celebrations in the south over the prospect of independence stand in stark contrast to the muted atmosphere in the north where many view secession as a tragedy.
"This was a message to show our sadness that Sudan will secede. We were hoping for unity," says Abeer Osman, al-Azhari&${esc.hash}39;s grand-daughter. "This is the beginning of the end of the Sudanese state."
The house, viewed as a symbol of Sudanese independence, also flies Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s old flag at half mast.
"We feel an incredible sadness that a ... very loved part of Sudan will separate from us but we know that this is their right," says Sara Nuqdullah, an opposition Umma Party official, who broke down in tears. "For us it is very painful as if a part of our body has been removed."
Many in the Arab and Muslim north blame the ruling National Congress Party for not doing enough since the 2005 settlement to overcome ethnic and economic conflicts with southerners, who follow mostly traditional beliefs or Christianity.
The landlocked south has the majority of the oil reserves, but the north has the infrastructure, so revenues depend on cooperation. The divorce cannot be complete.
COLONIAL LEGACY
Not everyone in the north is unhappy.
Al-Tayyib Mustafa, head of the Justice and Peace Forum, held three parties on the first day of voting, slaughtering bulls in a traditional southern celebration.
"It was a great mistake that the British...joined the north and south which was like a marriage between the cat and the rat," he said, referring to Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s colonial power before it gained independence in 1956.
"Why not let the rat go and marry the Ugandans?" he said. "Let them go and we can clean our house."
His newspaper, al-Intibaha, enjoys the largest distribution in Sudan selling 97,000 copies every day with the next most popular daily selling just 30,000. This shows growing support for his pro-secession stance in the north, although most educated Sudanese loathe it, likening it to a British tabloid.
Mustafa, who is President Omar Hassan al-Bashir&${esc.hash}39;s uncle but denies any political link, said the north should have been given the right to vote in the referendum too.
"Why let them decide our fate? What if they wanted unity and we don&${esc.hash}39;t like unity, why should they impose their union on us? Most of the northerners now are fed up."
While Mustafa&${esc.hash}39;s celebrations were tolerated, Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s security clamped down on attempts to show public mourning. Analysts say Khartoum is anxious to quash any dissent as the split may leave it vulnerable to challenges to its power.
Police stormed al-Azhari&${esc.hash}39;s house, demanded they remove the black cloth and attempted to arrest Osman.
They also prevented an opposition party holding a "wake" for Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s unity and stopped live tv interviews with two of the north&${esc.hash}39;s most vocal dissenters.
"There is a continuous investment in racial and ethnic hatred from them and that is the voice they want to be heard," said northern opposition leader Yasir Arman.
"The north is feeling that the government betrayed all their dreams of having a new society, of a different route that could have kept the unity of Sudan," he added. "The (government) wants to intimidate the people of the north to keep them silent."
(Additional reporting by Khaled Abdelaziz; editing by Ralph Boulton)
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