Sudan

The nation is officially called the Republic of Sudan (جمهورية السودان). The region has been inhabited since antiquity, where it was known as Kush by the Egyptians and came under Egyptian rule in the 8th century BCE. Though Kush would regain its independence from Egypt and its people and culture remain distinct, the region would be caught up in the affairs of Egypt and Assyria for hundreds of years. A Kushite kingdom was established at Meroe in 590 BCE, which would remain a cultural and economic center into the first few centuries of the Common Era.

By the 6th century, fifty states had emerged as the political and cultural heirs of the Meroitic Kingdom. Byzantine emmissaries brought Christianity to the region in 540 CE which mostly impacted the southern parts of modern Sudan and the kingdom of Alodia (or Alwah) which arose in the 8th century. Islam would gradually make its way into the north, primarily due to contact with Arab traders and settlers, and in 1093 a Muslim prince ascended to the throne of Dunqulah, with Islamic culture thereafter having a very strong impact on the development of Sudanese culture thereafter.

Northern Sudan fell to Egyptian military forces in 1820, bringing it technically into the Ottoman Empire, although practically under the control of Ottoman Egypt. A Sudanese revolt in 1885 under Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah finally repelled the Egyptians and set up a Mahdist regime, which ruled Sudan as a militaristic state. In 1887, Sudanese forces invaded Ethiopia and attempted to invade Egypt, where they were repelled by British-led Egyptian forces. From 1896 to 1898, British Lord Kitchener led military campaigns into Sudan, resulting in a defeat of the Mahdists and the establishment of Anglo-Egyptian rule which lasted until 1956.

The Sudanese pursuit of independence from British control would be dirctly tied to the same struggle in Egypt, which not only sought to shake off British control, but to see the establishment of a combined Egytian-Sudanese state. By 1954, however, both the British and Egyptians would sign a treaty guaranteeing Sudanese independence on 1 January 1956. Fearing an independent state that would likely be dominated by the Muslim north, Christian and indigenous tribal regions in the south sparked off the First Sudanese Civil War, which lasted from 1955 until 1972 and ended only in cease fire. After ten years (1983), the Sudanese Second Civil war broke out, once again pitting the predominantly Sudanese government in the Muslim north against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) representing the indigenous and Christian south. Since 1983, nearly 2 million people have lost their lives in Sudan either as a result of warfare or famine. Only in 2005 was a tentative peace agreement reached, granting southern Sudan provisional autonomy for six years, to be followed by referendum and independence. The peace agreement was implemented by a United Nations missiong (UNMIS).

The western Sudanese region of Dharfur subsequently took up arms against the Sudanese government after making accusations of genocide against non-Arabs. Led by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the region remained in a state of civil war until negotiations in 2009 and 2010 produced a cease fire with the respective movements.