Republic of the Sudan

Republic of the Sudan جمهورية السودان
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Khartoum
Official languages	Arabic English
Dominant mode of production	Capitalism
Government	Federal Bourgeois Provisional Government
Area
• Total	1,886,068 km²
Population
• 2022 estimate	45,709,353

Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa bordered by Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea with a coastline on the Red Sea to the east. Sudan's capital is Khartoum, located where the two major tributaries of the Nile River merge together. Sudan is Africa's third largest country by area. Prior to the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa by area.

In 2023, a civil war broke out in Sudan following a series of mass protests by a coalition of civilian groups which gained momentum in 2018, and a succession of military takeovers and transitional governing structures following the 2019 military ousting of Omar al-Bashir, who had been Sudan's prior head of state for 30 years. Major warring factions consist of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, factions which had previously composed a Transitional Military Council formed after a military takeover of Sudan's short-lived transitional government which itself had been formed after the 2019 ousting of Bashir. The civilian protests against Bashir and also against the successive transitional governments have included people's Resistance Committees and the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), among other groups such as the Sudanese Professional Association.

The SAF is headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti). Earlier in his career, al-Burhan was posted in Darfur in the 2000s and coordinated joint actions with Hemedti's paramilitary group. In 2015, al-Burhan oversaw Sudanese troops fighting in Yemen on behalf of the Saudi-backed faction. Hemedti was formerly a commander of the Janjaweed militia group and is one of the wealthiest people in Sudan, he and his family being involved in the gold mining industry. The United Arab Emirates, the leading destination of smuggled gold from Sudan, has been accused of financing and arming the RSF.

After the outbreak of fighting between the SAF and RSF forces in 2023, the Sudanese Communist Party issued a statement which characterized the events as "a continuation of the struggle over power and the country's wealth, encouraged by some foreign powers, and being carried out by armed groups subservient to these foreign powers." In another statement, issued in 2025, the SCP described the warring parties as "two sides of the same coin" stating that both regional and international forces led by the United States have been seeking "to secure a partnership between the military and select civilian factions in order to protect their entrenched interests from the threat of radical change." The SCP statement emphasized the need to engage with the masses and construct "grassroots instruments of struggle [...] far removed from the machinations of elite politics." As of 2025, it has been estimated that at least 150,000 people have been killed and at least 13 million people displaced since the outbreak of the war.

History

Ancient history

See main articles: Kingdom of Kush, Nobadia

The area which comprises modern Sudan has been known by different names and varying political and cultural groupings in different periods. The region historically known as Nubia is located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The cataracts of the Nile river have in some contexts served as a way of conceptualizing boundaries in the region, with the cataract at Aswan often considered the traditional boundary between Egypt in the north and Nubia in the south. Over millennia, the region of Nubia gave rise to a number of cultures and kingdoms. Some of these include Kush, Makuria, Nobadia, and Alodia.

Kush

The area around Kush was inhabited circa 8000 BCE. The city of Kerma was established in Kush by circa 2400 BCE. Kerma traded in ivory, gold, bronze, ebony, and slaves with neighboring states and along the Red Sea. Around 1500 BCE, Egypt conquered Kerma, with Egyptian rule prevailing in Kush until the 11th century BCE. The Kingdom of Kush rose to prominence between approximately 1069 BCE and 350 CE.

Over time, as Egypt's New Kingdom declined (circa 1069 BCE) the Kushite city of Napata grew stronger as a political entity independent of Egypt. Over time, a dynasty of kings from Napata arose, with the third king of Napata, Piankhi (also called Piye), defeating a coalition of Egyptian princes and establishing the 25th Dynasty of Egypt.

Beginning in the 6th century BCE, the capital of Kush was gradually moved south to Meroë, a junction of several important trade routes in a region which was rich with iron and precious metals as well as agricultural production exporting grains and cereals. Kush continued with Meroë as its capital until an invasion by Axumites circa 330 CE, which destroyed the city, with the Kingdom of Kush itself coming to an end circa 350 CE.

Medieval history

By the sixth century CE there were three Nubian kingdoms, namely Nobadia, Makuria, and Alodia. These kingdoms converted to Christianity in the sixth century. In the seventh century, Nobadia was incorporated into Makuria.

Mentions of the Funj sultanate appear in historical records by approximately 1504.

The sultanate of Dar Fur arose in the mid-1600s.

Mahdist state

In 1885, Khartoum was captured by the armies of the Mahdist revolution against British and Turco-Egyptian forces, led by Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdullah, eventually defeated by the British in 1898.

Anglo-Egyptian rule

Anglo-Egyptian rule in Sudan was a condominium of joint rule established by an agreement between Great Britain and Egypt under which the two countries would jointly administer Sudan.

Agriculture in the colonial period was primarily export-oriented, with the Gezira Scheme established to supply British industrial capital with cotton.

In 1943, Ismail al-Azhari, future prime minster of independent Sudan, helped form the Ashiqqa Party, the first political party organized in Sudan.

Independence

On January 1, 1956, Sudan gained formal independence, with Ismail al-Azhari elected as first prime minister.

In the analysis of Fatima Babiker Mahmoud, a lecturer of political economy at the University of Khartoum in the 1980s, after independence in 1956, the nature of the state which had previously been constructed to support colonial rule did not change significantly after independence. In Mahmoud's view, the main difference was a shift from British colonial policy to a neo-colonial configuration.

Sudan was under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1969, when Jaafar Nimeiry overthrew the corrupt junta with support from the Sudanese Communist Party. Nimeiry banned all political parties except the SCP. In 1970, he began an attack on Sadiq al-Mahdi's reactionary Umma Party before cracking down on the SCP.

In 1978, Nimeiry signed the first of several stabilization programs with the International Monetary Fund. This resulted in the creation of a typical IMF/World Bank program which consisted of measures such as currency devaluation, trade liberalization, social spending cuts, layoffs, removal of food subsidies, and a shift to privatization and an export-oriented economy, particularly focusing on the export of cotton. The export-led growth model led to smallholders being pushed off of their lands while giving an advantage to already large land owners and agribusiness, as well as to a decline in the production of food for local consumption and a rise in dependence on imports of wheat via US taxpayer-subsidized commodity aid programs.

In 1985, mass protests removed Nimeiry from power, but Omar Hassan al-Bashir established another dictatorship in 1989. U.S. president Bill Clinton ordered the destruction of Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant in 1988, removing 90% of Sudan's access to medicine. Sudan lost all access from anti-malaria drugs. The US labeled Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993. South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011.

In 2019, the military overthrew Bashir, and Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf briefly took power before being replaced by Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan, an ally of the Saudi and UAE monarchies. In October 2021, the army staged a coup and took full control of the state. In 2023, fighting broke out between Abdel Fattah's government and the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti).