By Jeremy Clarke
JUBA, Sudan, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, leading an observer mission at South Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s referendum on independence, said on Saturday that turnout was about 90 percent and a majority of voters appeared to favour secession.
Exhausted polling staff processed a last straggle of voters in the southern capital Juba on the final day of the week-long plebiscite. Some officials were so tired they were seen sleeping behind their dusty stalls.
The vote caps a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war between the mostly Muslim north and the south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs.
Northern officials have appeared increasingly resigned to losing the oil-producing south -- which makes up a quarter of the country&${esc.hash}39;s land -- allaying fears conflict could reignite.
Carter, leading one of the largest observation missions, told reporters in Khartoum a handful of centres had reported 100 percent turnouts and were already tallying the results.
"We already know that in the south there&${esc.hash}39;s been about an average of 90 percent (participation) from the stations we&${esc.hash}39;ve observed and I think they are representative," Carter said.
He said that in the few centres where he had seen counting under way, the votes "were practically unanimous in favour of separation with only a few ballots to the contrary."
"It&${esc.hash}39;s highly likely that the referendum result will be in favour of separation," he said, but added that no one should prejudge the results.
At least 60 percent of registered voters needed to take part for the result to be binding. That point was reached just four days into the vote, the organising commission said.
Carter played down threats of popular protests in the north following the vote.
"My hope is that the opposition parties in the north will be brought into consultations with President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir&${esc.hash}39;s party and that they will prepare for modifications for the constitution."
HIGH TURNOUT
Students clashed with police in Khartoum and two northern towns on Wednesday and Thursday in protests over rising prices, part of an economic crisis that has been exacerbated by fears of the impact of losing the south.
Staff at one of the main polling centres in Juba told Reuters only 120 of the 3,000 people registered to vote there had not shown up by Saturday morning.
Basilica Mode, one of only two voters waiting at the booth, said she had rushed back from Nigeria to take part in the poll.
"I&${esc.hash}39;m so relieved now that I could vote. I will not party tonight. We will pray instead. There will be problems of course but we will work it out. We have done our part."
Southern independence campaigners have described the vote as a chance to throw off decades of perceived northern repression.
Bashir said in a speech in Khartoum state that neither the north nor Muslims had ever oppressed the south, but rather the divisions were the legacy of the ex-colonial British power.
"The south has been a burden on Sudan from independence until today," he said on state television.
More than 182,000 exiled southerners have returned to the south since the end of October, according to U.N. figures, many of them fearing repercussions in the north after the vote.
South Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s government thought that figure could rise to as much as half a million by the beginning of July, said the U.N.&${esc.hash}39;s deputy humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Lise Grande.
"Services are already overstretched. With more people coming back there will be tremendous pressures on agencies," she said. (Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in Khartoum and Jason Benham in Juba; writing by Andrew Heavens, editing Tim Pearce)
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