9 december 2010 - Juba, South Sudan - Spiritual and traditional leader slaughters a bull in a ritual for a peacefull separation during a rally in support of the independence referendum in Juba, South Sudan. According to South Sudanese officials, more than 2.8 million people have registered to vote in the referendum. The referendum on whether the oil-producing region should declare independence, scheduled for Jan. 9, is the climax of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of north-south conflict - Africa's longest civil war that was fought over ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil and that killed 2 million people. Photo credit: Benedicte Desrus