186-430: Stalemate [REDACTED] Sudan [REDACTED] SSDF [REDACTED] SPLA dissidents [REDACTED] Nuer White Army [REDACTED] Ugandan insurgents: [REDACTED] Zaire (1994– 1997 ) [REDACTED] al-Qaeda (1991–1996) [REDACTED] Iraq [REDACTED] China [REDACTED] SPLA [REDACTED] Tens of thousands The Second Sudanese Civil War
372-546: A United Nations report, an estimated 430 children were victims of sexual violence through military recruitment in South Sudan. USAID continues to work on educational initiatives, including granting 9,000 scholarships to boys and girls. They also have over a dozen educational projects and have constructed 140 primary-level schools and four secondary schools. Over 1.4 million students attend or are involved in USAID educational programs in
558-534: A civilian cabinet. Now a General al-Bashir became: president, chief of state, prime minister, and chief of the armed forces. The RCC banned trade unions, political parties, and other "non-religious" institutions. About 78,000 members of the army, police, and civil administration were purged in order to reshape the government. In March 1991, a new penal code, the Criminal Act of 1991 , instituted harsh punishments nationwide, including amputations and stoning . Although
744-426: A consequence, the weather tends to be sunny, dry and stable with a minimal chance of rainfall. Subsiding, diverging, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems are extremely unfavorable for the development of convectional showers. The subtropical ridge is the predominant factor that explains the hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh ) of this vast region. The descending airflow
930-515: A constitutional conference. In 1988, the SPLA and the DUP agreed on a peace plan calling for the abolition of military pacts with Egypt and Libya , freezing of Sharia law, an end to the state of emergency, and a cease-fire. However, during this period the second civil war intensified in lethality, and the national economy continued to deteriorate. When prices of basic goods were increased in 1988, riots ensued, and
1116-683: A dynastic change, while another one in 1761–1762 resulted in the Hamaj Regency , where the Hamaj (a people from the Ethiopian borderlands) effectively ruled while the Funj sultans were their mere puppets. Shortly afterwards the sultanate began to fragment; by the early 19th century it was essentially restricted to the Gezira. The coup of 1718 kicked off a policy of pursuing a more orthodox Islam, which in turn promoted
1302-552: A free vote on whether they wished independence or a British withdrawal. A polling process was carried out resulting in the composition of a democratic parliament and Ismail al-Azhari was elected first Prime Minister and led the first modern Sudanese government. On 1 January 1956, in a special ceremony held at the People's Palace, the Egyptian and British flags were lowered and the new Sudanese flag, composed of green, blue and yellow stripes,
1488-663: A government offensive seized many parts of southern Sudan, and captured the SPLA headquarters in Torit . Both the government regular armed forces and the Popular Defense Forces (PDF) were used to attack and raid villages in the south and in the Nuba Mountains . Sudan's governments have a long history of using proxies in southern Sudan, and the north–south border areas, to fight their wars and preserve their regular forces. These militias were recruited locally, and with covert ties to
1674-453: A growing number of SPLA members became wary of his rule, and began to conspire against him. In August 1991, internal dissent among the rebels led opponents of Garang's leadership, most importantly Riek Machar and Lam Akol , to attempt a coup against him. It failed, and the dissidents split off to form their own SPLA faction, the SPLA-Nasir . On 15 November 1991, Machar's SPLA-Nasir alongside
1860-515: A healthy adult. The Saharan silver ant is unique in that due to the extreme high temperatures of their habitat, and the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day. Dromedary camels and goats are the domesticated animals most commonly found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favourite animal used by nomads . Human activities are more likely to affect
2046-609: A key province of the New Kingdom, economically, politically, and spiritually. Indeed, major pharaonic ceremonies were held at Jebel Barkal near Napata. As an Egyptian colony from the 16th century BC, Nubia ("Kush") was governed by an Egyptian Viceroy of Kush . Resistance to the early eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian rule by neighboring Kush is evidenced in the writings of Ahmose, son of Ebana , an Egyptian warrior who served under Nebpehtrya Ahmose (1539–1514 BC), Djeserkara Amenhotep I (1514–1493 BC), and Aakheperkara Thutmose I (1493–1481 BC). At
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#17328451447692232-470: A movement for all oppressed Sudanese citizens, and was led by John Garang . Initially, the SPLA campaigned for a united Sudan, criticizing the central government for policies that were leading to national "disintegration". In September 1985 the Government of Sudan announced the end of the state of emergency and dismantled the emergency courts but soon promulgated a new judiciary act, which continued many of
2418-573: A new government with the DUP, and approved the SPLA/DUP peace plan. A constitutional conference was tentatively planned for September 1989. On 30 June 1989, however, military officers under Col. Omar Hassan al-Bashir , with alleged NIF instigation and support, replaced Sadiq al-Mahdi's government with the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCC) , a military junta of 15 military officers (reduced to 12 in 1991) assisted by
2604-510: A north–south conflict. The SPLA, DUP, and Umma Parties were the key groups forming the NDA, along with several smaller parties and northern ethnic groups. In 1995, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda stepped up their military assistance to the SPLA to the point of sending active troops into Sudan. Eritrean and Ethiopian military involvement weakened when the two countries entered a border conflict in 1998. Uganda's support weakened when it shifted its attention to
2790-539: A peace initiative for Sudan under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), but results have been mixed. Despite that record, the IGAD initiative promulgated the 1994 Declaration of Principles (DOP) that aimed to identify the essential elements necessary to a just and comprehensive peace settlement; i.e. the relationship between religion and the state, power-sharing, wealth-sharing, and
2976-570: A petty kingdom. After the prosperous reign of king Joel ( fl. 1463–1484) Makuria collapsed. Coastal areas from southern Sudan up to the port city of Suakin was succeeded by the Adal Sultanate in the fifteenth century. To the south, the kingdom of Alodia fell to either the Arabs, commanded by tribal leader Abdallah Jamma , or the Funj , an African people originating from the south. Datings range from
3162-572: A population of 50 million people as of 2024 and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres (728,215 square miles), making it Africa's third-largest country by area and the third-largest by area in the Arab League . It was the largest country by area in Africa and the Arab League until the secession of South Sudan in 2011 ; since then both titles have been held by Algeria . Sudan's capital and most populous city
3348-710: A revival of the Nubian Empire, which rather continued in the form of a smaller kingdom centred on Napata . The city was raided by the Egyptian c. 590 BC, and sometime soon after to the late-3rd century BC, the Kushite resettled in Meroë . On the turn of the fifth century the Blemmyes established a short-lived state in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, probably centred around Talmis ( Kalabsha ), but before 450 they were already driven out of
3534-569: A sizable, populous empire rivaling Egypt. Mentuhotep II , the 21st century BC founder of the Middle Kingdom , is recorded to have undertaken campaigns against Kush in the 29th and 31st years of his reign. This is the earliest Egyptian reference to Kush ; the Nubian region had gone by other names in the Old Kingdom. Under Thutmose I , Egypt made several campaigns south. The Egyptians ruled Kush in
3720-587: A social hierarchy over the next centuries which became the Kingdom of Kerma at 2500 BC. Anthropological and archaeological research indicates that during the predynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were ethnically and culturally nearly identical, and thus, simultaneously evolved systems of pharaonic kingship by 3300 BC. The Kerma culture was an early civilization centered in Kerma , Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 BC to 1500 BC in ancient Nubia . The Kerma culture
3906-564: A suburb of modern-day Khartoum). Still in the sixth century they converted to Christianity. In the seventh century, probably at some point between 628 and 642, Nobatia was incorporated into Makuria. Between 639 and 641 the Muslim Arabs of the Rashidun Caliphate conquered Byzantine Egypt. In 641 or 642 and again in 652 they invaded Nubia but were repelled, making the Nubians one of
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#17328451447694092-558: A summer rainy season that extends across Africa from east to west. The southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha (a drought-tolerant member of the Chenopodiaceae ), or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus , a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the southern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm (5.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation (this
4278-542: A surface feature of Earth, with near-current technology. The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada (stone plateaus); ergs (sand seas – large areas covered with sand dunes ) form only a minor part, contrary to common misconception , but many of the sand dunes are over 180 metres (590 ft) high. Wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features: sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains ( reg ), dry valleys ( wadi ), dry lakes ( oued ), and salt flats ( shatt or chott ). Unusual landforms include
4464-547: Is Khartoum . The area that is now Sudan witnessed the Khormusan ( c. 40000–16000 BC), Halfan culture ( c. 20500–17000 BC), Sebilian ( c. 13000–10000 BC), Qadan culture ( c. 15000–5000 BC), the war of Jebel Sahaba , the earliest known war in the world, around 11500 BC, A-Group culture (c. 3800–3100 BC), Kingdom of Kerma ( c. 2500–1500 BC), the Egyptian New Kingdom ( c. 1500–1070 BC), and
4650-639: Is a long-term average, since precipitation varies annually). Important cities located in the Sahara include Nouakchott , the capital of Mauritania; Tamanrasset , Ouargla , Béchar , Hassi Messaoud , Ghardaïa , and El Oued in Algeria; Timbuktu in Mali; Agadez in Niger; Ghat in Libya; and Faya-Largeau in Chad. The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert . It is located in
4836-422: Is a north African gazelle that can also go for a long time without water. Other notable gazelles include the rhim gazelle and dama gazelle . The Saharan cheetah ( northwest African cheetah ) lives in Algeria, Togo , Niger, Mali, Benin , and Burkina Faso . There remain fewer than 250 mature cheetahs, which are very cautious, fleeing any human presence. The cheetah avoids the sun from April to October, seeking
5022-609: Is a prehistoric industry, or domain, that existed between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Sahara, during the Neolithic Subpluvial . Human remains from this culture were found in 2000 at a site known as Gobero , located in Niger in the Ténéré Desert . The site is known as the largest and earliest grave of Stone Age people in the Sahara. The Kiffians were skilled hunters . Bones of many large savannah animals that were discovered in
5208-460: Is associated with high rates of wind-blown mineral dust, and these dust levels are found as expected in marine cores from the north tropical Atlantic. But around 12,500 BCE the amount of dust in the cores in the Bølling / Allerød phase suddenly plummets and shows a period of much wetter conditions in the Sahara, indicating a Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) event (a sudden warming followed by a slower cooling of
5394-561: Is dry and over 60% of Sudan's population lives in poverty. Sudan is a member of the United Nations , Arab League , African Union , COMESA , Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation . The country's name Sudan is a name given historically to the large Sahel region of West Africa to the immediate west of modern-day Sudan. Historically, Sudan referred to both the geographical region , stretching from Senegal on
5580-403: Is estimated to include five hundred species of plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area. Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach
5766-779: Is mentioned in the Bible as having saved the Israelites from the wrath of the Assyrians, although disease among the besiegers might have been one of the reasons for the failure to take the city. The war that took place between Pharaoh Taharqa and the Assyrian king Sennacherib was a decisive event in western history, with the Nubians being defeated in their attempts to gain a foothold in the Near East by Assyria. Sennacherib's successor Esarhaddon went further and invaded Egypt itself to secure his control of
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5952-588: Is now known as South Kordofan to the Sinai. Pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II . Between 800 BCE and 100 AD the Nubian pyramids were built, among them can be named El-Kurru , Kashta , Piye , Tantamani , Shabaka , Pyramids of Gebel Barkal , Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah) , the Sedeinga pyramids , and Pyramids of Nuri . The Kingdom of Kush
6138-407: Is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic . The name "Sahara" is derived from Arabic : صَحَارَى , romanized : ṣaḥārā /sˤaħaːraː/ , a broken plural form of ṣaḥrā' ( صَحْرَاء /sˤaħraːʔ/ ), meaning "desert". The desert covers much of North Africa , excluding
6324-643: Is the strongest and the most effective over the eastern part of the Great Desert, in the Libyan Desert: this is the sunniest, driest and the most nearly "rainless" place on the planet, rivaling the Atacama Desert , lying in Chile and Peru . The rainfall inhibition and the dissipation of cloud cover are most accentuated over the eastern section of the Sahara rather than the western. The prevailing air mass lying above
6510-422: Is very unreliable and erratic in the Sahara as it may vary considerably year by year. In full contrast to the negligible annual rainfall amounts, the annual rates of potential evaporation are extraordinarily high, roughly ranging from 2,500 millimetres (100 in) per year to more than 6,000 millimetres (240 in) per year in the whole desert. Nowhere else on Earth has air been found as dry and evaporative as in
6696-623: The 'Urabi revolt , which threatened the Khedive's survival. Tewfik appealed for help to the British, who subsequently occupied Egypt in 1882. Sudan was left in the hands of the Khedivial government, and the mismanagement and corruption of its officials. During the Khedivial period, dissent had spread due to harsh taxes imposed on most activities. Taxation on irrigation wells and farming lands were so high most farmers abandoned their farms and livestock. During
6882-532: The 9th century after the Hijra ( c. 1396–1494), the late 15th century, 1504 to 1509. An alodian rump state might have survived in the form of the kingdom of Fazughli , lasting until 1685. In 1504 the Funj are recorded to have founded the Kingdom of Sennar , in which Abdallah Jamma's realm was incorporated. By 1523, when Jewish traveller David Reubeni visited Sudan, the Funj state already extended as far north as Dongola. Meanwhile, Islam began to be preached on
7068-587: The Addis Ababa Agreement . Part of this agreement gave religious and cultural autonomy to the south. Despite this a number of mutinies by former Anyanya took place in 1974, 1975, and February 1976 with the March 1975 mutiny at Akobo seeing 200 killed, 150 soldiers executed, and 48 more sentenced to imprisonment for up to 15 years. The accords of the Addis Ababa Agreement had been incorporated in
7254-535: The Adrar of Mauritania and a value of 75 °C (167 °F) has been measured in Borkou , northern Chad. Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights. However, it is a myth that the nights are especially cold after extremely hot days in the Sahara. On average, nighttime temperatures tend to be 13–20 °C (23–36 °F) cooler than in
7440-481: The Algerian Desert called Bou Bernous , at an elevation of 378 metres (1,240 ft) above sea level, and only Death Valley, California rivals it. Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar , Timimoun , In Salah , Ouallene , Aoulef , Reggane with an elevation between 200 and 400 metres (660 and 1,310 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs, around 46 °C (114.8 °F) during
7626-577: The Arabisation of the state. To legitimise their rule over their Arab subjects the Funj began to propagate an Umayyad descend . North of the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, as far downstream as Al Dabbah , the Nubians adopted the tribal identity of the Arab Jaalin . Until the 19th century Arabic had succeeded in becoming the dominant language of central riverine Sudan and most of Kordofan. West of
Second Sudanese Civil War - Misplaced Pages Continue
7812-557: The Atlantic Coast to Northeast Africa and the modern Sudan. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān ( بلاد السودان ), or "The Land of the Blacks ". The name is one of various toponyms sharing similar etymologies , in reference to the very dark skin of the indigenous people. Prior to this, Sudan was known as Nubia and Ta Nehesi or Ta Seti by Ancient Egyptians named for
7998-714: The Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt ; it was centred at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta ("the Kushite") invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for nearly a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians . At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what
8184-623: The Constitution of Sudan ; the violation of the agreement led to the second civil war. The first violations occurred when President Gaafar Nimeiry attempted to take control of oil fields straddling the north–south border. Oil had been discovered in Bentiu in 1978, in southern Kurdufan and Upper Blue Nile in 1979, the Unity oilfields in 1980 and Adar oilfields in 1981, and in Heglig in 1982. Access to
8370-448: The Coptic alphabet , while also using Greek , Coptic and Arabic . Women enjoyed high social status: they had access to education, could own, buy and sell land and often used their wealth to endow churches and church paintings. Even the royal succession was matrilineal , with the son of the king's sister being the rightful heir. From the late 11th/12th century, Makuria's capital Dongola
8556-503: The Kingdom of Kush ( c. 785 BC – 350 AD). After the fall of Kush, the Nubians formed the three Christian kingdoms of Nobatia , Makuria , and Alodia . Between the 14th and 15th centuries, most of Sudan was gradually settled by Arab nomads . From the 16th to the 19th centuries, central and eastern Sudan were dominated by the Funj sultanate , while Darfur ruled the west and the Ottomans
8742-742: The Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians , early Holocene Capsians , and mid-Holocene Mechta groups, whereas the Tenerian crania are more like those of Mediterranean groups. Graves show that the Tenerians observed spiritual traditions, as they were buried with artifacts such as jewelry made of hippo tusks and clay pots. The most interesting find is a triple burial, dated to 5300 years ago, of an adult female and two children, estimated through their teeth as being five and eight years old, hugging each other. Pollen residue indicates they were buried on
8928-404: The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), and then the resurgent Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC). The Assyrians , from the tenth century BC onwards, had once more expanded from northern Mesopotamia , and conquered a vast empire, including the whole of the Near East , and much of Anatolia , the eastern Mediterranean , the Caucasus and early Iron Age Iran . According to Josephus Flavius,
9114-410: The Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa . The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains , the Tibesti Mountains , the Aïr Mountains , the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert . For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by
9300-453: The Richat Structure in Mauritania. Several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains , Ahaggar Mountains , Saharan Atlas , Tibesti Mountains , Adrar des Iforas , and the Red Sea Hills . The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi , a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad. The central Sahara is hyperarid , with sparse vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of
9486-420: The Sudan Defence Force played an active part in responding to incursions early in World War Two. Italian troops occupied Kassala and other border areas from Italian Somaliland during 1940. In 1942, the SDF also played a part in the invasion of the Italian colony by British and Commonwealth forces. The last British governor-general was Robert George Howe . The Egyptian revolution of 1952 finally heralded
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#17328451447699672-491: The Sudanese Communist Party . Several days later, anti-communist military elements restored Nimeiry to power. In 1972, the Addis Ababa Agreement led to a cessation of the north–south civil war and a degree of self-rule. This led to ten years hiatus in the civil war but an end to American investment in the Jonglei Canal project. This had been considered absolutely essential to irrigate the Upper Nile region and to prevent an environmental catastrophe and wide-scale famine among
9858-450: The Vali of Egypt under the Ottoman Empire , Muhammad Ali styled himself as Khedive of a virtually independent Egypt. Seeking to add Sudan to his domains, he sent his third son Ismail (not to be confused with Ismaʻil Pasha mentioned later) to conquer the country, and subsequently incorporate it into Egypt. With the exception of the Shaiqiya and the Darfur sultanate in Kordofan, he was met without resistance. The Egyptian policy of conquest
10044-474: The horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge , a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper troposphere usually descends, warming and drying the lower troposphere and preventing cloud formation. The permanent absence of clouds allows unhindered light and thermal radiation. The stability of the atmosphere above the desert prevents any convective overturning, thus making rainfall virtually non-existent. As
10230-403: The precession of Earth's axis (about 26,000 years) as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon . The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria , Chad , Egypt , Libya , Mali , Mauritania , Niger , Western Sahara and Sudan , and parts of southern Morocco and Tunisia . It covers 9 million square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi), 31% of
10416-444: The " September laws " instituting Islamic Sharia law were not suspended. A 15-member transitional military council was named, chaired by al-Dahab, in 1985. In consultation with an informal conference of political parties, unions, and professional organizations—known as the "Gathering"—the military council appointed an interim civilian cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Dr. Al-Jazuli Daf'allah . Elections were held in April 1986, and
10602-479: The 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade had an adverse impact on the economy of northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces. Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah , the Mahdi (Guided One), offered to the ansars (his followers) and those who surrendered to him a choice between adopting Islam or being killed. The Mahdiyah (Mahdist regime) imposed traditional Sharia Islamic laws . On 12 August 1881, an incident occurred at Aba Island , sparking
10788-400: The African continent. If all areas with a mean annual precipitation of less than 250 mm (9.8 in) were included, the Sahara would be 11 million square kilometres (4,200,000 sq mi). It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division . The Sahara is so large and bright that, in theory, it could be detected from other stars as
10974-417: The African humid period. At its largest extent, sometime before 5000 BCE, Lake Mega-Chad was the largest of four Saharan paleolakes, and is estimated to have covered an area of 350,000 km . The Sahara pump theory describes this cycle. During periods of a wet or " Green Sahara ", the Sahara becomes a savanna grassland and various flora and fauna become more common. Following inter-pluvial arid periods,
11160-402: The Ansar at Tushkah. The failure of the Egyptian invasion broke the spell of the Ansar's invincibility. The Belgians prevented the Mahdi's men from conquering Equatoria , and in 1893, the Italians repelled an Ansar attack at Agordat (in Eritrea ) and forced the Ansar to withdraw from Ethiopia. In the 1890s, the British sought to re-establish their control over Sudan, once more officially in
11346-414: The Bedoin of Asia, he sailed upstream to Upper Nubia to destroy the Nubian bowmen." The tomb writings contain two other references to the Nubian bowmen of Kush. By 1200 BC, Egyptian involvement in the Dongola Reach was nonexistent. Egypt's international prestige had declined considerably towards the end of the Third Intermediate Period . Its historical allies, the inhabitants of Canaan , had fallen to
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#173284514476911532-420: The British had a policy of running Sudan as two essentially separate territories; the north and south. The assassination of a Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in Cairo was the causative factor; it brought demands of the newly elected Wafd government from colonial forces. A permanent establishment of two battalions in Khartoum was renamed the Sudan Defence Force acting as under the government, replacing
11718-420: The Great Depression. Cotton and gum exports were dwarfed by the necessity to import almost everything from Britain leading to a balance of payments deficit at Khartoum. In July 1936 the Liberal Constitutional leader, Muhammed Mahmoud was persuaded to bring Wafd delegates to London to sign the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, "the beginning of a new stage in Anglo-Egyptian relations", wrote Anthony Eden . The British Army
11904-412: The Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots. The average high temperature exceeds 38 to 40 °C (100.4 to 104.0 °F) during the hottest month nearly everywhere in the desert except at very high altitudes. The world's highest officially recorded average daily high temperature was 47 °C (116.6 °F) in a remote desert town in
12090-401: The Intertropical Convergence Zone from the south and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Timbuktu, Mali and Agadez , Niger are found in this zone. The vast central hyper-arid core of the desert is virtually never affected by northerly or southerly atmospheric disturbances and permanently remains under the influence of
12276-410: The Khartoum agreements that ended military conflict between the government and significant rebel factions. Many of those leaders then moved to Khartoum where they assumed marginal roles in the central government, or collaborated with the government in military engagements against the SPLA. These three agreements paralleled the terms and conditions of the IGAD agreement, calling for a degree of autonomy for
12462-413: The Kiffian culture do not exist after 8,000 years ago, as the Sahara went through a dry period for the next thousand years. After this time, the Tenerian culture colonized the area. Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno , which sought dinosaur remains. Two distinct prehistoric cultures were discovered at the site: the early Holocene Kiffian culture, and
12648-467: The Levant. This succeeded, as he managed to expel Taharqa from Lower Egypt. Taharqa fled back to Upper Egypt and Nubia, where he died two years later. Lower Egypt came under Assyrian vassalage but proved unruly, unsuccessfully rebelling against the Assyrians. Then, the king Tantamani , a successor of Taharqa, made a final determined attempt to regain Lower Egypt from the newly reinstated Assyrian vassal Necho I . He managed to retake Memphis killing Necho in
12834-422: The Mahdist War. In 1899, Britain and Egypt reached an agreement under which Sudan was run by a governor-general appointed by Egypt with British consent. In reality, Sudan was effectively administered as a Crown colony . The British were keen to reverse the process, started under Muhammad Ali Pasha , of uniting the Nile Valley under Egyptian leadership and sought to frustrate all efforts aimed at further uniting
13020-464: The Mahdiyah period, largely because of the Khalifa's brutal methods to extend his rule throughout the country. In 1887, a 60,000-man Ansar army invaded Ethiopia , penetrating as far as Gondar . In March 1889, king Yohannes IV of Ethiopia marched on Metemma ; however, after Yohannes fell in battle, the Ethiopian forces withdrew. Abd ar-Rahman an-Nujumi, the Khalifa's general, attempted an invasion of Egypt in 1889, but British-led Egyptian troops defeated
13206-456: The New kingdom beginning when the Egyptian King Thutmose I occupied Kush and destroyed its capital, Kerma. This eventually resulted in their annexation of Nubia c. 1504 BC . Around 1500 BC, Nubia was absorbed into the New Kingdom of Egypt , but rebellions continued for centuries. After the conquest, Kerma culture was increasingly Egyptianized, yet rebellions continued for 220 years until c. 1300 BC . Nubia nevertheless became
13392-556: The Nile Valley by the Nobatians. The latter eventually founded a kingdom on their own, Nobatia . By the sixth century there were in total three Nubian kingdoms: Nobatia in the north, which had its capital at Pachoras ( Faras ); the central kingdom, Makuria centred at Tungul ( Old Dongola ), about 13 kilometres (8 miles) south of modern Dongola ; and Alodia , in the heartland of the old Kushitic kingdom, which had its capital at Soba (now
13578-459: The Nile by Sufi holy men who settled there in the 15th and 16th centuries and by David Reubeni's visit king Amara Dunqas , previously a Pagan or nominal Christian, was recorded to be Muslim. However, the Funj would retain un-Islamic customs like the divine kingship or the consumption of alcohol until the 18th century. Sudanese folk Islam preserved many rituals stemming from Christian traditions until
13764-503: The Nile to safeguard a planned irrigation dam at Aswan . Herbert Kitchener led military campaigns against the Mahdist Sudan from 1896 to 1898. Kitchener's campaigns culminated in a decisive victory in the Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898. A year later, the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat on 25 November 1899 resulted in the death of Abdallahi ibn Muhammad , subsequently bringing to an end
13950-655: The Nile, in Darfur , the Islamic period saw at first the rise of the Tunjur kingdom , which replaced the old Daju kingdom in the 15th century and extended as far west as Wadai . The Tunjur people were probably Arabised Berbers and, their ruling elite at least, Muslims. In the 17th century the Tunjur were driven from power by the Fur Keira sultanate . The Keira state, nominally Muslim since
14136-550: The Nubian and Medjay archers or bowmen. Since 2011, Sudan is also sometimes referred to as North Sudan to distinguish it from South Sudan . Affad 23 is an archaeological site located in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach in northern Sudan, which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldest open-air hut in the world) and diverse hunting and gathering loci some 50,000 years old". By
14322-671: The Nuer White Army carried out the Bor massacre , killing an estimated 2000 Dinka civilians. In September 1992, William Nyuon Bany formed a second rebel faction, and in February 1993, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol formed a third rebel faction. On 5 April 1993, the three dissident rebel factions announced a coalition of their groups called SPLA United at a press conference in Nairobi , Kenya . During 1990 and 1991,
14508-528: The Ottoman invasion saw the attempted usurpation of Ajib , a minor king of northern Nubia. While the Funj eventually killed him in 1611/1612 his successors, the Abdallab , were granted to govern everything north of the confluence of Blue and White Niles with considerable autonomy. During the 17th century the Funj state reached its widest extent, but in the following century it began to decline. A coup in 1718 brought
14694-508: The Sahara (birds in particular) such as African silverbill and black-faced firefinch , among others. There are also small desert crocodiles in Mauritania and the Ennedi Plateau of Chad. The deathstalker scorpion can be 10 cm (3.9 in) long. Its venom contains large amounts of agitoxin and scyllatoxin and is very dangerous; however, a sting from this scorpion rarely kills
14880-518: The Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions and the flora and fauna are forced to retreat northwards to the Atlas Mountains , southwards into West Africa , or eastwards into the Nile Valley . This separates populations of some of the species in areas with different climates , forcing them to adapt , possibly giving rise to allopatric speciation . It is also proposed that humans accelerated
15066-514: The Sahara is strongly influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with warmer winter temperatures during negative NAO events and cooler winters with more frosts when the NAO is positive. This is because the weaker clockwise flow around the eastern side of the subtropical anticyclone during negative NAO winters, although too dry to produce more than negligible precipitation, does reduce
15252-497: The Sahara is the continental tropical (cT) air mass, which is hot and dry. Hot, dry air masses primarily form over the North-African desert from the heating of the vast continental land area, and it affects the whole desert during most of the year. Because of this extreme heating process, a thermal low is usually noticed near the surface, and is the strongest and the most developed during the summertime. The Sahara High represents
15438-565: The Sahara region. However, at least two instances of snowfall have been recorded in Sahara, in February 1979 and December 2016, both in the town of Ain Sefra . One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when
15624-595: The Second Sudanese Civil War. In May of 1983, the 1st Division's 105th Battalion in the Sudanese military mutinied in the towns of Bor, South Sudan and Pibor . Government soldiers moved to suppress the mutiny but were repulsed by the rebels. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was founded in 1983 as a rebel group , to reestablish an autonomous southern Sudan by fighting against the central government. While based in southern Sudan, it identified itself as
15810-499: The Sudanese government supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War . This changed American attitudes toward the country. Bill Clinton 's administration prohibited American investment in the country and supplied money to neighbouring countries to repel Sudanese incursions. The US also began attempts to "isolate" Sudan and began referring to it as a rogue state . Since 1993, the leaders of Eritrea , Ethiopia, Uganda , and Kenya have pursued
15996-698: The Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs , including Afrovenator , Jobaria and Ouranosaurus , have also been found here. The modern Sahara, though, is not lush in vegetation, except in the Nile Valley, at a few oases , and in the northern highlands, where Mediterranean plants such as the olive tree are found to grow. Shifts in Earth's axis increased temperatures and decreased precipitation, which caused an abrupt beginning of North Africa desertification about 5,400 years ago. The Kiffian culture
16182-576: The amount of rainfall received – the Northern (Mediterranean), Central and Southern Zones. There are two transitional zones – the Mediterranean-Sahara transition and the Sahel transition zone. The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants . Approximately a quarter of these are endemic . About half of these species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts. The central Sahara
16368-591: The ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years ago. The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years, believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41,000-year cycle in which
16554-421: The atmospheric circulation itself, the desert is made even drier by its geographical configuration and location. Indeed, the extreme aridity of the Sahara is not only explained by the subtropical high pressure: the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia also help to enhance the aridity of the northern part of the desert. These major mountain ranges act as a barrier, causing a strong rain shadow effect on
16740-491: The beginning of the march towards Sudanese independence. Having abolished the monarchy in 1953, Egypt's new leaders, Mohammed Naguib , whose mother was Sudanese, and later Gamal Abdel Nasser , believed the only way to end British domination in Sudan was for Egypt to officially abandon its claims of sovereignty. In addition, Nasser knew it would be difficult for Egypt to govern an impoverished Sudan after its independence. The British on
16926-559: The biblical Moses led the Egyptian army in a siege of the Kushite city of Meroe. To end the siege Princess Tharbis was given to Moses as a (diplomatic) bride, and thus the Egyptian army retreated back to Egypt. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centred on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile , and the Atbarah River and the Nile River . It was established after
17112-402: The central government expanding and dominating peoples of the periphery, raising allegations of marginalization . Kingdoms and great powers based along the Nile River have fought against the people of inland Sudan for centuries. Since at least the 18th century, central governments have attempted to regulate and exploit the undeveloped southern and inland regions of Sudan. Some sources describe
17298-600: The climate). The moister Saharan conditions had begun about 12,500 BCE, with the extension of the ITCZ northward in the northern hemisphere summer, bringing moist wet conditions and a savanna climate to the Sahara, which (apart from a short dry spell associated with the Younger Dryas ) peaked during the Holocene thermal maximum climatic phase at 4000 BCE when mid-latitude temperatures seem to have been between 2 and 3 degrees warmer than in
17484-446: The conflict as an ethnoreligious one where the Arab - Muslim central government's pursuits to impose Sharia law in 1983 on non-Muslim southerners led to violence, and eventually to the civil war. Douglas Johnson has pointed to exploitative governance as the root cause. When the British governed Sudan as a colony they administered the northern and southern provinces separately. The south
17670-572: The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo . By 1997, seven groups in the government camp, led by former Garang lieutenant Riek Machar , signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement with the NIF, thereby forming the largely symbolic South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) umbrella. Furthermore, the government signed the Nuba Mountains , and Fashoda agreements with rebel factions. These included
17856-475: The country became a secular state . Sudan is a least developed country and among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 170th on the Human Development Index as of 2024 and 185th by nominal GDP per capita . Its economy largely relies on agriculture due to international sanctions and isolation, as well as a history of internal instability and factional violence. The large majority of Sudan
18042-474: The daytime. The smallest variations are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than a 10 °C (18 °F) difference, while the largest variations are found in inland desert areas where the humidity is the lowest, mainly in the southern Sahara. Still, it is true that winter nights can be cold, as it can drop to the freezing point and even below, especially in high-elevation areas. The frequency of subfreezing winter nights in
18228-469: The desert experiences around three to five months when the average high strictly exceeds 40 °C (104 °F); while in the southern central part of the desert, there are up to six or seven months when the average high temperature strictly exceeds 40 °C (104 °F). Some examples of this are Bilma , Niger and Faya-Largeau, Chad. The annual average daily temperature exceeds 20 °C (68 °F) everywhere and can approach 30 °C (86 °F) in
18414-618: The desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub , with trees and taller shrubs in wadis , where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are many subdivisions of the great desert: Tanezrouft , the Ténéré , the Libyan Desert , the Eastern Desert , the Nubian Desert and others. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years. To
18600-526: The drying-out period from 6000 to 2500 BCE by pastoralists overgrazing available grassland. The growth of speleothems (which requires rainwater) was detected in Hol-Zakh, Ashalim , Even-Sid, Ma'ale-ha-Meyshar, Ktora Cracks, Nagev Tzavoa Cave, and elsewhere, and has allowed tracking of prehistoric rainfall. The Red Sea coastal route was extremely arid before 140 and after 115 kya (thousands of years ago). Slightly wetter conditions appear at 90–87 kya, but it still
18786-458: The east. In 1811, Mamluks established a state at Dunqulah as a base for their slave trading . Under Turco-Egyptian rule of Sudan after the 1820s, the practice of trading slaves was entrenched along a north–south axis, with slave raids taking place in southern parts of the country and slaves being transported to Egypt and the Ottoman Empire . From the 19th century, the entirety of Sudan
18972-646: The eastern continental extension of the Azores High , centered over the North Atlantic Ocean . The subsidence of the Sahara High nearly reaches the ground during the coolest part of the year, while it is confined to the upper troposphere during the hottest periods. The effects of local surface low pressure are extremely limited because upper-level subsidence still continues to block any form of air ascent. Also, to be protected against rain-bearing weather systems by
19158-694: The edge of the Sahara desert, which is unsuitable for agricultural development. Oil revenues make up about 70% of Sudan's export earnings. Due to the numerous tributaries of the Nile river and heavier precipitation in the south of Sudan, it has superior water access and more fertile land. There has also been a significant amount of death from warring tribes in the south. Most of the conflict has been between Nuer and Dinka but other ethnic groups have also been involved. These tribal conflicts continued after South Sudanese independence. The first civil war ended in 1972, with
19344-600: The edge of the desert thousands of years ago, since the end of the last glacial period . In the Central Sahara, engraved and painted rock art were created perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago, spanning the Bubaline Period , Kel Essuf Period , Round Head Period , Pastoral Period , Caballine Period , and Cameline Period . The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles survive, with half found in
19530-503: The eighth millennium BC, people of a Neolithic culture had settled into a sedentary way of life there in fortified mudbrick villages, where they supplemented hunting and fishing on the Nile with grain gathering and cattle herding. Neolithic peoples created cemeteries such as R12 . During the fifth millennium BC, migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed
19716-722: The end of the Second Intermediate Period (mid-sixteenth century BC), Egypt faced the twin existential threats—the Hyksos in the North and the Kushites in the South. Taken from the autobiographical inscriptions on the walls of his tomb-chapel, the Egyptians undertook campaigns to defeat Kush and conquer Nubia under the rule of Amenhotep I (1514–1493 BC). In Ahmose's writings, the Kushites are described as archers , "Now after his Majesty had slain
19902-829: The fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb , and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan . It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel , a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around
20088-523: The few who managed to defeat the Arabs during the Islamic expansion . Afterward the Makurian king and the Arabs agreed on a unique non-aggression pact that also included an annual exchange of gifts , thus acknowledging Makuria's independence. While the Arabs failed to conquer Nubia they began to settle east of the Nile, where they eventually founded several port towns and intermarried with the local Beja . From
20274-476: The flow of dry, cold air from higher latitudes of Eurasia into the Sahara significantly. The average annual rainfall ranges from very low in the northern and southern fringes of the desert to nearly non-existent over the central and the eastern part. The thin northern fringe of the desert receives more winter cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of low pressure systems over the Mediterranean Sea along
20460-622: The former garrison of Egyptian army soldiers, saw action afterward during the Walwal Incident . The Wafdist parliamentary majority had rejected Sarwat Pasha 's accommodation plan with Austen Chamberlain in London; yet Cairo still needed the money. The Sudanese Government's revenue had reached a peak in 1928 at £6.6 million, thereafter the Wafdist disruptions, and Italian borders incursions from Somaliland, London decided to reduce expenditure during
20646-699: The habitat in areas of permanent water (oases) or where water comes close to the surface. Here, the local pressure on natural resources can be intense. The remaining populations of large mammals have been greatly reduced by hunting for food and recreation. In recent years development projects have started in the deserts of Algeria and Tunisia using irrigated water pumped from underground aquifers. These schemes often lead to soil degradation and salinization . Researchers from Hacettepe University have reported that Saharan soil may have bio-available iron and also some essential macro and micro nutrient elements suitable for use as fertilizer for growing wheat. People lived on
20832-587: The help primarily of the Baggara of western Sudan, overcame the opposition of the others and emerged as the unchallenged leader of the Mahdiyah. After consolidating his power, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad assumed the title of Khalifa (successor) of the Mahdi, instituted an administration, and appointed Ansar (who were usually Baggara ) as emirs over each of the several provinces. Regional relations remained tense throughout much of
21018-405: The highest recorded worldwide. The sky is usually clear above the desert, and the sunshine duration is extremely high everywhere in the Sahara. Most of the desert has more than 3,600 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 82% of daylight hours), and a wide area in the eastern part has over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine per year (over 91% of daylight hours). The highest values are very close to
21204-543: The hottest months of the year. Salah, well known in Algeria for its extreme heat, has average high temperatures of 43.8 °C (110.8 °F), 46.4 °C (115.5 °F), 45.5 °C (113.9 °F) and 41.9 °C (107.4 °F) in June, July, August and September respectively. There are even hotter spots in the Sahara, but they are located in extremely remote areas, especially in the Azalai , lying in northern Mali. The major part of
21390-485: The hottest regions year-round. However, most of the desert has a value in excess of 25 °C (77 °F). Sand and ground temperatures are even more extreme. During daytime, the sand temperature is extremely high: it can easily reach 80 °C (176 °F) or more. A sand temperature of 83.5 °C (182.3 °F) has been recorded in Port Sudan . Ground temperatures of 72 °C (161.6 °F) have been recorded in
21576-500: The independence of South Sudan 6 years after the war ended. Roughly two million people died as a result of war, famine and disease caused by the conflict. Four million people in southern Sudan were displaced at least once, normally repeatedly during the war. The civilian death toll is one of the highest of any war since World War II and was marked by numerous human rights violations , including slavery and mass killings . Wars in Sudan are often characterized as fights between
21762-563: The infamous "White House" – the Giada barracks in Juba – alone. At the same time, the SPLA ruthlessly crushed all internal and external opposition as far as possible, including other rebel factions such as the Anyanya II insurgents and critics in its own ranks. Garang became infamous for his authoritarian leadership style, and ordered the torture and execution of several dissenting SPLA commanders. Over time,
21948-478: The joint initiative because it neglected to address issues of the relationship between religion and the state and failed to mention the right of self-determination. Some critics viewed it as more aimed at a resolution among northern political parties and protecting the perceived security interests of Egypt over the unity of Sudan. Peace talks between the southern rebels and the government made substantial progress in 2003 and early 2004, although skirmishes in parts of
22134-406: The last glacial period , the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries. The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north. Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend
22320-458: The late nineteenth century, The hypothesis was later formally proposed and tested by the meteorologist John Kutzbach in 1981. Kutzbach's ideas about the impacts of insolation on global monsoonal patterns have become widely accepted today as the underlying driver of long-term monsoonal cycles. Kutzbach never formally named his hypothesis and as such it is referred to here as the " Orbital Monsoon Hypothesis " as suggested by Ruddiman in 2001. During
22506-518: The leeward side by dropping much of the humidity brought by atmospheric disturbances along the polar front which affects the surrounding Mediterranean climates. The primary source of rain in the Sahara is the Intertropical Convergence Zone , a continuous belt of low-pressure systems near the equator which bring the brief, short and irregular rainy season to the Sahel and southern Sahara. Rainfall in this giant desert has to overcome
22692-475: The local tribes, most especially the Dinka. In the civil war that followed their homeland was raided, looted, pillaged, and burned. Many of the tribe were murdered in a bloody civil war that raged for over 20 years. Sahara The Sahara ( / s ə ˈ h ɑːr ə / , / s ə ˈ h ær ə / ) is a desert spanning across North Africa . With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it
22878-419: The maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and by having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapotranspiration . Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover. Several species of fox live in the Sahara including: the fennec fox , pale fox and Rüppell's fox . The addax , a large white antelope , can go nearly a year in the desert without drinking. The dorcas gazelle
23064-463: The medieval Nubians has been described as " Afro-Byzantine ", but was also increasingly influenced by Arab culture. The state organisation was extremely centralised, being based on the Byzantine bureaucracy of the sixth and seventh centuries. Arts flourished in the form of pottery paintings and especially wall paintings. The Nubians developed an alphabet for their language, Old Nobiin , basing it on
23250-431: The mid eighth to mid eleventh century the political power and cultural development of Christian Nubia peaked. In 747 Makuria invaded Egypt, which at this time belonged to the declining Umayyads , and it did so again in the early 960s, when it pushed as far north as Akhmim . Makuria maintained close dynastic ties with Alodia, perhaps resulting in the temporary unification of the two kingdoms into one state. The culture of
23436-437: The middle Holocene Tenerian culture . The post-Kiffian desiccation lasted until around 4600 BCE, when the earliest artefacts associated with the Tenerians have been dated to. Some 200 skeletons have been discovered at Gobero. The Tenerians were considerably shorter in height and less robust than the earlier Kiffians. Craniometric analysis also indicates that they were osteologically distinct. The Kiffian skulls are akin to those of
23622-533: The monarchy and demanded the withdrawal of British forces from all of Egypt and Sudan. Muhammad Naguib , one of the two co-leaders of the revolution and Egypt's first President, was half-Sudanese and had been raised in Sudan. He made securing Sudanese independence a priority of the revolutionary government. The following year, under Egyptian and Sudanese pressure, the British agreed to Egypt's demand for both governments to terminate their shared sovereignty over Sudan and to grant Sudan independence. On 1 January 1956, Sudan
23808-524: The most damage is the agriculture sector. The conflict forced many farmers to escape the violence and abandon their farmland. Agriculture projects that were meant to improve cultivation methods, some that were funded by the United Nations , were terminated because they were destroyed or people stopped working; such projects include a pump-irrigation system. Additionally, the "animal wealth" of the farmers significantly decreased. Over six million cows , two million sheep , and one million goats were killed during
23994-462: The name of the Egyptian Khedive, but in actuality treating the country as a British colony. By the early 1890s, British, French, and Belgian claims had converged at the Nile headwaters. Britain feared that the other powers would take advantage of Sudan's instability to acquire territory previously annexed to Egypt. Apart from these political considerations, Britain wanted to establish control over
24180-617: The national government. Many of the Khartoum-aligned groups were created and then armed by the NIF in a deliberate 'divide and rule' strategy. The widespread activity of insurgent and pro-government militants and increasing lawlessness in southern Sudan resulted in the militarization of many communities. Ethnic violence became widespread, and all sides targeted civilians to destroy the power bases and recruitment centers of their rivals. Those who could formed self-defense groups, and these were often based on familial and tribal links as these were
24366-506: The next few years, with Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and his Umma Party always in a central role. In May 1986, the Sadiq al-Mahdi government coalition began peace negotiations with the SPLA led by Col. John Garang . In that year the SPLA and a number of Sudanese political parties met in Ethiopia and agreed to the " Koka Dam " declaration, which called for abolishing Islamic Sharia law and convening
24552-409: The north, the Sahara skirts the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt and portions of Libya, but in Cyrenaica and the Maghreb , the Sahara borders the Mediterranean forest, woodland, and scrub eco-regions of northern Africa, all of which have a Mediterranean climate characterized by hot summers and cool and rainy winters. According to the botanical criteria of Frank White and geographer Robert Capot-Rey,
24738-429: The north. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was in control of large areas of Equatoria , Bahr al Ghazal , and Upper Nile provinces and also operated in the southern portions of Darfur , Kordofan , and Blue Nile provinces. The government controlled a number of the major southern towns and cities, including Juba , Wau , and Malakal . An informal cease-fire in May broke down in October 1989. In July 1992,
24924-422: The northern limit of the Sahara corresponds to the northern limit of date palm cultivation and the southern limit of the range of esparto , a grass typical of the Mediterranean climate portion of the Maghreb and Iberia . The northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm (3.9 in) isohyet of annual precipitation. To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of dry tropical savanna with
25110-447: The oil fields meant significant economic benefit to whoever controlled them. Islamic fundamentalists in the north had been discontented with the Addis Ababa Agreement, which gave relative autonomy to the non-Islamic majority Southern Sudan Autonomous Region . The fundamentalists continued to grow in power, and in 1983 President Nimeiry declared all of Sudan an Islamic state , terminating the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region and starting
25296-743: The only ones most southern people could still rely on. In this way, groups like the Nuer White Army and Dinka Titweng ("cattle guard") militias came into existence. Even though they were originally intended to just defend civilian communities, they often became brutal gangs which targeted civilians of other ethnicities. The government and rebel groups exploited these tensions and self-defense groups, using them to destabilize their enemies. The Sudanese Armed Forces became infamous for brutally suppressing all civil dissidents. People suspected of disloyalty or rebel sympathies were arrested and taken to prisons and barracks, where they were tortured and executed. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people were murdered at
25482-407: The opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the "desert Sahara". The idea that changes in insolation (solar heating) caused by long-term changes in Earth's orbit are a controlling factor for the long-term variations in the strength of monsoon patterns across the globe was first suggested by Rudolf Spitaler in
25668-485: The other hand continued their political and financial support for the Mahdist successor, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi , who it was believed would resist Egyptian pressure for Sudanese independence. Abd al-Rahman was capable of this, but his regime was plagued by political ineptitude, which garnered a colossal loss of support in northern and central Sudan. Both Egypt and Britain sensed a great instability fomenting, and thus opted to allow both Sudanese regions, north and south to have
25854-437: The outbreak of what became the Mahdist War . From his announcement of the Mahdiyya in June 1881 until the fall of Khartoum in January 1885, Muhammad Ahmad led a successful military campaign against the Turco-Egyptian government of the Sudan, known as the Turkiyah . Muhammad Ahmad died on 22 June 1885, a mere six months after the conquest of Khartoum. After a power struggle amongst his deputies, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad , with
26040-419: The physical and atmospheric barriers that normally prevent the production of precipitation. The harsh climate of the Sahara is characterized by: extremely low, unreliable, highly erratic rainfall; extremely high sunshine duration values; high temperatures year-round; negligible rates of relative humidity ; a significant diurnal temperature variation ; and extremely high levels of potential evaporation which are
26226-401: The polar front, although very attenuated by the rain shadow effects of the mountains and the annual average rainfall ranges from 100 millimetres (4 in) to 250 millimetres (10 in). For example, Biskra , Algeria, and Ouarzazate , Morocco, are found in this zone. The southern fringe of the desert along the border with the Sahel receives summer cloudiness and rainfall due to the arrival of
26412-503: The practices of the emergency courts. Despite Nimeiry's public assurances that the rights of non-Muslims would be respected, southerners and other non-Muslims remained deeply suspicious. On 6 April 1985, senior military officers led by General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab mounted a coup. Among the first acts of the new government was to suspend the 1983 constitution, rescind the decree declaring Sudan's intent to become an Islamic state, and disband Nimeiry's Sudanese Socialist Union . However,
26598-421: The price increases were cancelled. When Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi refused to approve a peace plan reached by the DUP and the SPLA in November 1988, the DUP left the government. The new government consisted essentially of the Umma Party and the Islamic fundamentalist NIF. In February 1989, the army presented Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi with an ultimatum: he could move toward peace or be removed. He chose to form
26784-409: The process and besieged cities in the Nile Delta. Ashurbanipal , who had succeeded Esarhaddon, sent a large army in Egypt to regain control. He routed Tantamani near Memphis and, pursuing him, sacked Thebes . Although the Assyrians immediately departed Upper Egypt after these events, weakened, Thebes peacefully submitted itself to Necho's son Psamtik I less than a decade later. This ended all hopes of
26970-427: The recent past. Soon the Funj came in conflict with the Ottomans , who had occupied Suakin c. 1526 and eventually pushed south along the Nile, reaching the third Nile cataract area in 1583/1584. A subsequent Ottoman attempt to capture Dongola was repelled by the Funj in 1585. Afterwards, Hannik , located just south of the third cataract, would mark the border between the two states. The aftermath of
27156-406: The recent past. Analysis of Nile River deposited sediments in the delta also shows this period had a higher proportion of sediments coming from the Blue Nile , suggesting higher rainfall also in the Ethiopian Highlands . This was caused principally by a stronger monsoonal circulation throughout the sub-tropical regions, affecting India, Arabia and the Sahara. Lake Victoria only recently became
27342-451: The regime killed an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people. Protests erupted in 2018, demanding Bashir's resignation, which resulted in a coup d'état on 11 April 2019 and Bashir's imprisonment. Sudan is currently embroiled in a civil war between two rival factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Islam was Sudan's state religion and Islamic laws were applied from 1983 until 2020 when
27528-425: The region, which was thin on the ground. The British ambassador blocked Italian attempts to secure a Non-Aggression Treaty with Egypt-Sudan. But Mahmoud was a supporter of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ; the region was caught between the Empire's efforts to save the Jews, and moderate Arab calls to halt migration. The Sudanese Government was directly involved militarily in the East African Campaign . Formed in 1925,
27714-478: The region. Historically, disputes in Sudan have been over fertile land and water. Oil became a point of dispute following its discovery in Sudan. However, despite the availability of oil, Sudan experiences the paradox of the plenty , a phenomenon that occurs when a country has plentiful natural resources—in this case, oil—but struggles to fully compete economically. Because of displacement, refugees who fled their destroyed homes cut down forests to survive. They used
27900-508: The reign of Sulayman Solong (r. c. 1660–1680), was initially a small kingdom in northern Jebel Marra , but expanded west- and northwards in the early 18th century and eastwards under the rule of Muhammad Tayrab (r. 1751–1786), peaking in the conquest of Kordofan in 1785. The apogee of this empire, now roughly the size of present-day Nigeria , would last until 1821. In 1821, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali of Egypt , invaded and conquered northern Sudan. Although technically
28086-427: The right of self-determination for the south. The Sudanese Government did not sign the DOP until 1997 after major battlefield losses to the SPLA. In 1995, the opposition in the north united with parties from the south to create a coalition of opposition parties called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). This development opened a northeastern front to the civil war, making it a Sudan wide conflict rather than simply
28272-451: The same area suggest that they lived on the shores of a lake that was present during the Holocene Wet Phase, a period when the Sahara was verdant and wet. The Kiffian people were tall, standing over six feet in height. Craniometric analysis indicates that this early Holocene population was closely related to the Late Pleistocene Iberomaurusians and early Holocene Capsians of the Maghreb, as well as mid-Holocene Mechta groups. Traces of
28458-563: The same year, only 35 percent of the teachers in South Sudan had a primary-level of education. An additional obstacles students face is the forced recruitment into armed militias and state military. According to a United Nations report, 50 percent of South Sudanese children do not attend school. Boys and girls, who are in schools, are abducted by soldiers and forced to join the military or armed rebel groups. When they are taken, most girls are raped by their captors and those who resist are killed. Boys are "castrated and sexually mutilated". According to
28644-412: The scale of the Nile floods between 2700 and 2100 BCE. The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions . With their variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soil, these regions harbor distinct communities of plants and animals. The flora of the Sahara is highly diversified based on the bio-geographical characteristics of this vast desert. Floristically , the Sahara has three zones based on
28830-521: The shelter of shrubs such as balanites and acacias. They are unusually pale. The other cheetah subspecies ( northeast African cheetah ) lives in Chad, Sudan and the eastern region of Niger. However, it is currently extinct in the wild in Egypt and Libya. There are approximately 2000 mature individuals left in the wild. Other animals include the monitor lizards , hyrax , sand vipers , and small populations of African wild dog , in perhaps only 14 countries and red-necked ostrich . Other animals exist in
29016-401: The source of the White Nile and dried out almost completely around 15 kya. The sudden subsequent movement of the ITCZ southwards with a Heinrich event (a sudden cooling followed by a slower warming), linked to changes with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, led to a rapid drying out of the Saharan and Arabian regions, which quickly became desert. This is linked to a marked decline in
29202-483: The south and the right of self-determination. Nevertheless, the SPLA made major advances in 1997 due to the success of Operation Thunderbolt , an offensive during which the southern Sudanese separatists seized most of Central and Western Equatoria from the government. In July 2000, the Libyan/Egyptian Joint Initiative on the Sudan called for the establishment of an interim government, power-sharing, constitutional reform, and new elections. Southern critics objected to
29388-422: The south continued. A Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed on 9 January 2005 in Nairobi . The terms of the peace treaty were: The status of three central and eastern provinces was a point of contention in the negotiations. According to the SPLA, about 2 million people had died in southern Sudan alone due to the war. The Second Sudanese Civil War destroyed many sectors of economic activity. The sector with
29574-470: The southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which eventually led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Between 1989 and 2019, a 30-year-long military dictatorship led by Omar al-Bashir ruled Sudan and committed widespread human rights abuses , including torture, persecution of minorities, alleged sponsorship of global terrorism , and ethnic genocide in Darfur from 2003–2020. Overall,
29760-490: The southern states were officially exempt from these Islamic prohibitions and penalties, the 1991 act provided for a possible future application of Islamic Sharia law in the south. In 1993, the government transferred most non-Muslim judges from the south to the north, replacing them with Muslim judges in the south. The introduction of Public Order Police to enforce Sharia law resulted in the arrest, and treatment under Sharia penalties, of southerners and other non-Muslims living in
29946-561: The strongest anticyclonic weather regime, and the annual average rainfall can drop to less than 1 millimetre (0.04 in). In fact, most of the Sahara receives less than 20 millimetres (0.8 in). Of the 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) of desert land in the Sahara, an area of about 2,800,000 square kilometres (1,100,000 sq mi) (about 31% of the total area) receives an annual average rainfall amount of 10 millimetres (0.4 in) or less, while some 1,500,000 square kilometres (580,000 sq mi) (about 17% of
30132-440: The theoretical maximum value. A value of 4300 hours (98%) of the time would be recorded in Upper Egypt ( Aswan , Luxor ) and in the Nubian Desert ( Wadi Halfa ). The annual average direct solar irradiation is around 2,800 kWh/(m year) in the Great Desert. The Sahara has a huge potential for solar energy production. The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make
30318-409: The tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°. At present, it is in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15,000 years. When the North African monsoon is at its strongest, annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the " green Sahara ". For a relatively weak North African monsoon,
30504-478: The total area) receives an average of 5 millimetres (0.2 in) or less. The annual average rainfall is virtually zero over a wide area of some 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi) in the eastern Sahara comprising deserts of: Libya, Egypt and Sudan ( Tazirbu , Kufra , Dakhla , Kharga , Farafra , Siwa , Asyut , Sohag , Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel , Wadi Halfa) where the long-term mean approximates 0.5 millimetres (0.02 in) per year. Rainfall
30690-448: The transitional military council turned over power to a civilian government as promised. The government was headed by Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi of the Umma Party . It consisted of a coalition of the Umma Party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) (formerly the National Unionist Party), the National Islamic Front (NIF) of Hassan al-Turabi , and several southern region parties. This coalition dissolved and reformed several times over
30876-471: The transitional period in the 1950s. In the post-colonial government of 1953, the Sudanization Committee had only six southerners in its 800 senior administrative positions. The second war was partially about natural resources. Between the north and the south lie significant oil fields and thus significant foreign interests (the oil revenue is privatized to Western interests as in Nigeria ). The northerners wanted to control these resources because they live on
31062-401: The two countries. Under the Delimitation, Sudan's border with Abyssinia was contested by raiding tribesmen trading slaves, breaching boundaries of the law. In 1905 local chieftain Sultan Yambio, reluctant to the end, gave up the struggle with British forces that had occupied the Kordofan region, finally ending the lawlessness. Ordinances published by Britain enacted a system of taxation. This
31248-520: The war. A different sector that was affected by the conflict was the industrial sector , which consists of manufacturing and processing. Manufacturing facilities were unable to produce essential materials, including soap , textiles , sugar , and processed foods . Processed-foods facilities include the preservation of foods , such as canning fruits and vegetables, and vegetable oil production. Poverty continued to climb and significantly impacted people in rural areas. The destroyed agriculture sector
31434-401: The wood for fuel, building materials, and to find food. Sudan Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in Northeast Africa . It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the southeast, and South Sudan to the south. Sudan has
31620-401: Was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army . It was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile . It lasted for almost 22 years and is one of the longest civil wars on record. The war resulted in
31806-588: Was allowed to return to Sudan to protect the Canal Zone. They were able to find training facilities, and the RAF was free to fly over Egyptian territory. It did not, however, resolve the problem of Sudan: the Sudanese Intelligentsia agitated for a return to metropolitan rule, conspiring with Germany's agents. Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini made it clear that he could not invade Abyssinia without first conquering Egypt and Sudan; they intended unification of Italian Libya with Italian East Africa . The British Imperial General Staff prepared for military defence of
31992-425: Was based in the southern part of Nubia, or " Upper Nubia " (in parts of present-day northern and central Sudan), and later extended its reach northward into Lower Nubia and the border of Egypt. The polity seems to have been one of several Nile Valley states during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt . In the Kingdom of Kerma's latest phase, lasting from about 1700–1500 BC, it absorbed the Sudanese kingdom of Saï and became
32178-443: Was conquered by the Egyptians under the Muhammad Ali dynasty . Religious-nationalist fervour erupted in the Mahdist Uprising in which Mahdist forces were eventually defeated by a joint Egyptian-British military force. In 1899, under British pressure, Egypt agreed to share sovereignty over Sudan with the United Kingdom as a condominium . In effect, Sudan was governed as a British possession. The Egyptian revolution of 1952 toppled
32364-415: Was duly declared an independent state. After Sudan became independent, the Gaafar Nimeiry regime began Islamist rule. This exacerbated the rift between the Islamic North, the seat of the government, and the Animists and Christians in the South. Differences in language, religion, and political power erupted in a civil war between government forces, influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and
32550-469: Was expanded and intensified by Ibrahim Pasha 's son, Ismaʻil, under whose reign most of the remainder of modern-day Sudan was conquered. The Egyptian authorities made significant improvements to the Sudanese infrastructure (mainly in the north), especially with regard to irrigation and cotton production. In 1879, the Great Powers forced the removal of Ismail and established his son Tewfik Pasha in his place. Tewfik's corruption and mismanagement resulted in
32736-417: Was following the precedent set by the Khalifa. The main taxes were recognized. These taxes were on land, herds, and date-palms. The continued British administration of Sudan fuelled an increasingly strident nationalist backlash, with Egyptian nationalist leaders determined to force Britain to recognise a single independent union of Egypt and Sudan. With a formal end to Ottoman rule in 1914, Sir Reginald Wingate
32922-419: Was held to be more similar to the other east-African colonies – Kenya , Tanganyika , and Uganda – while northern Sudan was more similar to Arabic -speaking Egypt . Northern Arabs were prevented from holding positions of power in the south with its African traditions, and trade was discouraged between the two areas. However, in 1946, the British gave in to northern pressure to integrate the two areas. Arabic
33108-399: Was in decline, and Alodia's capital declined in the 12th century as well. In the 14th and 15th centuries Bedouin tribes overran most of Sudan, migrating to the Butana , the Gezira , Kordofan and Darfur . In 1365 a civil war forced the Makurian court to flee to Gebel Adda in Lower Nubia , while Dongola was destroyed and left to the Arabs. Afterwards Makuria continued to exist only as
33294-403: Was initially counteracted by the monsoon , which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago. Lake Chad is the remnant of a former inland sea, paleolake Mega-Chad, which existed during
33480-399: Was just one tenth the rainfall around 125 kya. In the southern Negev Desert speleothems did not grow between 185 and 140 kya ( MIS 6), 110–90 (MIS 5.4–5.2), nor after 85 kya nor during most of the interglacial period (MIS 5.1), the glacial period and Holocene . This suggests that the southern Negev was arid-to-hyper-arid in these periods. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Sahara
33666-458: Was made the language of administration in the south, and northerners began to hold positions there. The southern elite, trained in English , resented the change as they were kept out of government. After decolonization most power was given to the northern elites based in Khartoum , causing unrest in the south. The British moved towards granting Sudan independence, but did not invite southern Sudanese leaders to participate in negotiations during
33852-430: Was more extensive than it is now with the extent of the tropical forests being greatly reduced, and the lower temperatures reduced the strength of the Hadley Cell . This is a climate cell which causes rising tropical air of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) to bring rain to the tropics, while dry descending air, at about 20 degrees north , flows back to the equator and brings desert conditions to this region. It
34038-420: Was raised in their place by the prime minister Ismail al-Azhari . Dissatisfaction culminated in a coup d'état on 25 May 1969. The coup leader, Col. Gaafar Nimeiry , became prime minister, and the new regime abolished parliament and outlawed all political parties. Disputes between Marxist and non-Marxist elements within the ruling military coalition resulted in a briefly successful coup in July 1971 , led by
34224-435: Was reduced and reallocated to military and security forces. Sudan's military spending increased from 10 percent to 20 percent, while reducing education spending and other areas. Following the war, education was less likely to be funded, less educators were available due to death or injury, and education facilities were destroyed. As of 2015 42 percent of South Sudan's budget is allocated to military and security expenditures. In
34410-469: Was sent that December to occupy Sudan as the new Military Governor. Hussein Kamel was declared Sultan of Egypt and Sudan , as was his brother and successor, Fuad I . They continued upon their insistence of a single Egyptian-Sudanese state even when the Sultanate of Egypt was retitled as the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan , but it was Saad Zaghloul who continued to be frustrated in the ambitions until his death in 1927. From 1924 until independence in 1956,
34596-543: Was the primary source of income for about 8 out of 10 households. Living in a rural region is also associated with a lower quality of life because residents lack access to basic services and economic opportunities and job opportunities. Before the war, Sudan did not have a comprehensive infrastructure system. It lacked roads, bridges, and communications, and led to the existing infrastructure being destroyed. Critical infrastructure, like waterways and canals, were destroyed by airstrikes . When Sudan entered war, education funding
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