Sudan

 

 

 

Sudan, whose official name is the Republic of the Sudan (Arabic: جمهورية السودان, Yumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), colloquially called North Sudan (as opposed to South Sudan), is one of the fifty-four countries that make up the African continent . Its capital and most populated city is Khartoum. It is located in the northeast of Africa and shares a border with Egypt to the north, with the Red Sea to the northeast, with Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, with South Sudan to the south, with the Central African Republic to the southwest, with Chad to the west and with Libya at West. Until 2011, when the southern region of the country separated (forming the new Republic of South Sudan) was the African state that shared the border with a greater number of countries (nine), including Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The population of Sudan is a combination of indigenous Africans with a Nilo-Saharan mother tongue and descendants of migrants from the Arabian peninsula. Due to a process of Arabization, common to the rest of the Muslim world, today Arab culture predominates in Sudan. The majority of the population professes Islam. The Nile River crosses the country from south to north.

The country has a long history, dating back to the Ancient Age, where it is deeply intertwined with the history of Egypt, belonging successively to various states until its independence in the mid-twentieth century. Sudan suffered seventeen years of war during the First Sudanese Civil War (1955-1972), followed by ethnic, religious and economic conflicts between the population of the Arab-Muslim north and the population of the animistic, nilotic-Christian and black South that led to the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005).

Due to the continuous political and military imbalance, a coup d'état was carried out in 1989 led by the then Brigadier Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who ended up proclaiming himself, in 1993, President of Sudan since currently (May 2018) continues to occupy. The second civil war ended after the signing, in 2005, of the General Peace Agreement that led to the drafting of a new constitution and gave autonomy to what was then the southern region of the country. In a referendum carried out in January 2011, that region obtained the votes necessary to become independent so that on July 9, 2011 it did so, becoming known as the Republic of South Sudan.

 

Travel Destinations in Sudan

 

Pyramids of Meroe   Ancient Pyramids of Meroe consists of three royal cemeteries that were used to bury royalty as well as their family and servants.

 

 

 

 

History of Sudan

Antiquity and the Middle Ages
In Sudan, finds of the Khartoum culture of the Stone Age were discovered. In the 4th-3rd millennium BC. e. in northern Sudan there is a culture close to the culture of Egypt at that time. In antiquity, a significant part of the territory of modern Sudan (known as Nubia) was inhabited by Semitic-Hamitic and Kushite tribes, akin to the ancient Egyptians. From the 2nd millennium BC e. Negroids from the south also moved here. In the south of modern territory lived the ancestors of modern Nilots. Locals traded with ancient Egypt and were subjected to predatory raids on his part. At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. here the state of Kerma arises, which is later replaced by the kingdom of Kush.

At the beginning of the 4th century AD e. most of the territory entered the kingdom of Aksum. Over the next centuries, several independent kingdoms arose in the region. The most powerful of them, the Christian state of Mukurra, founded in the VI century BC. e., existed for almost 900 years, until in the XIV century it was not captured by the Egyptian Mamelukes. Another state of Aloa, was conquered around 1500 by the people of the fungi.

In the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries on the territory of present Sudan there were independent states with developed agriculture, crafts and trade. The most important of them are the Sultanate of Sennar and the Sultanate of Darfur. However, by the middle of the XVIII century, they broke up into separate feudal principalities and independent nomadic tribes.

XIX century
In 1819-1822, Egypt captured most of the territory of Sudan. In accordance with the firm of the High Port in 1841, the administration of these administrative units, called "Egyptian Sudan", was transferred to the Viceroy of Egypt, thus Sudan became part of the Ottoman Empire, but in fact became the possession of Egypt.

In the second half of the 19th century, the influence of Great Britain increased in Sudan. Cruel exploitation and national oppression (combined with traditionalist reaction) led to the emergence of a powerful popular protest movement with a religious and reactionary orientation. Religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdullah, proclaimed himself in 1881 the "Mahdi" (messiah) and tried to unite the tribes of western and central Sudan against the Ottomans. The uprising ended with the capture of Khartoum in 1885 and the expulsion of European, Turkish and Egyptian officials from the country. Mehmed Emin Pasha (Eduard Schnitzer 1840–1892) - Governor of the Sudan region and Russian explorer of Africa Vasily Yunker (1840–1892) left the region with an expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley. The leader of the uprising soon died, but the despotic state he created, headed by Abdullah ibn al-Said, lasted another fifteen years, and only in 1898 the uprising was crushed by Anglo-Egyptian troops.

On January 19, 1899, Great Britain and Egypt signed an agreement on the establishment of joint management in the Sudan (Anglo-Egyptian condominium). The top officials were the British, and the middle were the Egyptians. In fact, Sudan was turned into a colony of Great Britain.

XX century
After the end of World War I, the British colonialists headed for the transformation of Sudan into a cotton producing country. The Sudan began to form a national bourgeoisie.

To strengthen its power, the British administration, in particular, encouraged the anti-Islamic and anti-Arab sentiments of the people of the Sudanese south, adhering to traditional beliefs and professing Christianity.

In 1921, an officer of the 9th Sudanese battalion, the son of a Dinka slave, Ali Abd al-Latif created the first political organization, the Sudanese United Tribal Society, which demanded independence. She issued a manifesto calling on Sudanese to armed uprising.

During World War II, in June 1940, the Italian army, operating from the territory of Abyssinia, occupied part of the territory of Sudan, but already in 1941 the Italians were forced to leave, and Sudan became an important base for the British armed forces in Africa. Military units recruited from the local population participated in hostilities in Eritrea, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia.

Participation in the war had positive consequences for Sudan - the growth of national industry, the activation of political life, the emergence of political parties, trade unions, and the strengthening of aspirations for independence.

 

On October 15, 1951, the Egyptian Parliament approved the law on the termination of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1899, the Egyptian King Farouk was proclaimed King of Egypt and Sudan.

After the July Revolution of 1952, Egypt recognized the right of the Sudanese people to self-determination. In November 1953, parliamentary elections were held in Sudan, and in 1954 a government of transitional self-government was created. In August 1955, the Sudanese parliament decided on the final termination of the condominium, and in the same year the British and Egyptian troops were withdrawn from Sudan.

On January 1, 1956, Sudan was proclaimed an independent state.

 

 

 

 

 

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