JUBA, Sudan — As voters continued flooding the polls on Monday for a landmark referendum on southern Sudan’s independence, officials said more than 40 people had been killed over the weekend in intense skirmishes in a contested area along Sudan’s north-south border.

The voting, which began Sunday, is proceeding jubilantly and remarkably smoothly, with high expectations and few serious complaints anywhere across southern Sudan. But if the referendum passes and the south breaks off from the north, the disputed border will become the next issue to resolve, and some fear that the specter of an all-out border war is rising.

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