Swearing in of Sudan vice president delayed

The swearing in of Salva Kiir as Sudan's first vice president has been delayed so that officials can pay their respects to the…

The swearing in of Salva Kiir as Sudan's first vice president has been delayed so that officials can pay their respects to the widow of predecessor John Garang who died in a helicopter crash last week.

Mr Kiir, Mr Garang's deputy and military chief, had been due to be sworn in today in the capital Khartoum.

"The second vice president (Ali Osman Mohamed) Taha will be going to Juba on Tuesday to pay his respects to Rebecca Garang," a source at the presidency told Reuters. "No other date has been fixed for the swearing in ceremony yet."

Mr Garang, who led southern rebels in a civil war that lasted more than two decades, signed a peace deal in January and died just three weeks after becoming first vice president as part of the peace accord.

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News of his death led to charges of foul play among the large southern community in Khartoum and sparked three days of riots that killed 111 people and injured more than 300 in the worst violence in the capital in decades.

Mr Garang was buried amid emotional scenes in Juba, the southern capital, on Saturday as President Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised mourners he would push on with the peace plan and soldiers of both sides carried the coffin in a show of unity.

The southern civil war, which has killed two million, broadly pitted the Khartoum-based Islamist government against the mostly Christian and animist south but was complicated by issues of oil, ethnicity and ideology.

The peace deal provides a new coalition government, wealth and power sharing, democratic elections and a southern referendum on secession from the north within six years.

It does not cover a separate conflict in the country's western Darfur region, however, which has killed tens of thousands and forced more than two million from their homes.