Montenegro votes for independence

A narrow majority voted Sunday to split from Serbia, referendum commission officials announced, consigning the last fragments of the former Yugoslavia to history.

The majority of 55.4 percent announced by the commission's head Frantisek Lipka, with 44.6 percent voting against, was only narrowly over the 55 percent threshold for the result to be valid.

Nevertheless, once confirmed and ratified, it would seal independence for this aspiring nation of just 650,000 people wedged between the mountains and the Adriatic Sea and bordered by Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.