Southern Sudanese grieved for former rebel leader John Garang today and world leaders hoped a peace deal would hold after rioting killed 36 people in the capital Khartoum.
Mr Garang died when a Ugandan helicopter he was travelling in went down in bad weather at the weekend. Just three weeks ago, he became Sudan's vice-president as part of a January peace accord hailed as a rare success for the continent.
More than 100 people were still in hospital with injuries from the rioting, which was sparked by the news of Mr Garang's death. Residents said calm had returned to the streets today amid a heavy security presence.
Fellow former fighters, supporters and relatives gathered in New Site, a small settlement in the remote bush of southern Sudan, where Mr Garang's body was laid out in a wooden casket with a flag draped over it on a bed in a modest room.
Mr Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) announced five days of mourning starting today. The SPLM also moved swiftly to choose a close Garang ally - his deputy Salva Kiir - to succeed him.
The SPLM expects Mr Kiir to take Mr Garang's post as first vice president in the new power-sharing government set up in the January accord that ended two decades of north-south conflict, Africa's longest-running civil war.
Mr Garang, a skillful battlefield commander and politician, was sworn in as Sudan's first vice president on July 9th. Some southerners, who have long complained of discrimination by the Islamic authorities based in the north, fear their position may be weakened without him.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said he was "confident" the peace accord would hold.
Africa's largest country is divided between an Arabised Muslim north and the south, which is a mix of African ethnicities with Christians, animists and Muslims.
The peace deal included giving southerners the right to vote on secession after a six-year interim period and also shared out Sudan's oil wealth between north and south roughly equally.
The United Nations, the United States and other international figures and bodies called Mr Garang's death a great loss and urged respect for the peace process he began.