Sudan: Microcosm of Africa

From the Sudan Vision Daily: Sudan: Microcosm of Africa
Khartoum,- Sudan is a melting pot that brings together Africa and the Arab world. It has been for centuries a crossing point but more than that it was the cradle of ancient civilizations and culture, bringing together the desert and the rich African savanna. Its unique geopolitical position was the springboard for cultural and ethnic melting between the sub-Saharan Africa and Africa north of the great Sahara, desert.

It is no secret that Sudan has been bridge bring the Arab peninsula and the diverse West African region, extending from Chad up to the ocean. It enjoys a unique culture, religious, and ethnic diversity.

Sudan is located in north east African with the river Nile as the most dominant feature of its geography as the Nile basin constitutes 67.4% of the country total area. De to its uniq3eu geographical location, Sudan has always been a trading and cultural bridge between Northern and Southern Africa as well as between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, particularly West and East Africa.

The current people of Sudan descend from a mixture of many ethnicities and group most notable Arab/African Hamite), and 96.7% of the population is Muslim.

Sudan gained independence from the Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule on January the 1st 1956. In 1955, a year before it gained independence, a war broke out between the central government and different groups from Southern Sudan which continued to flare up unabated except from the period 1972 and 1983.

The South which was subjected to geographic and cultural isolation since the beginning of 1922, in addition to other factors of nature assumed a relatively special status on the Sudanese state's map. This led to a development of sense of non-belonging to the mother land and among a wide sector of southern Sudanese intelligentsia and the rebellion against the central government. This was affected the state's social economic and political stability and exhausted its human and natural resources for more than half a century.

A series of talks were held between the government and rebel movements in number African capitals since November 1989. In 2002, difficult negotiations stared aiming at ending the war and reaching a comprehensive and just peace between the central government and southern reels.

The negotiations culminated in the signing of Sudan's Comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in 2005 which put an end to the war and granted southerners the right to self –determination at the end of an interim period as stipulated in the agreement, accordingly a free referendum was conducted on January 2011 in which citizens of the south chose to break away from the rest of the country and create an independent county. On July 9th 2011, Sudan witnessed the beginning of the second republic in its history.

Sudan today covers an area of 1,882,000 SQ KM

It is the 2nd in Africa and 3rd in the Arab world

The land area 1752,187 SQ km

Water areas 129,813 SQ km

Land boundaries
Total 6,780
Egypt 1273km
Eritrea 636 km
Ethiopia 727 km
South Sudan 1973 km
Central African Republic 448 km
Chad 1340 km
Libya 383 kms