Sudan Country Profile
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in north eastern Africa. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Chad to the west, the Central African Republic to the southwest, South Sudan to the south, Ethiopia to the southeast, Eritrea to the east, and the Red Sea to the northeast.
Sudan has a population of 40.53 million. The official languages of Sudan are Arabic and English, with a further 114 different tribal languages. The 2005 constitution declares: “All indigenous languages of Sudan are national languages and shall be respected, developed and promoted”. The main religion is Islam.
WHY people are leaving the country ?
Sudan became independent from Egypt and Great Britain in 1956. From 1989 until 2019 the country was led by Colonel Omid al-Bashir, as a military one party state. In 2003 the Sudanese Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against the government which lead to war in Darfur. The conflict has since been described as genocide, with two arrest warrants issued for war crimes for Bashir by the International Criminal Court. Many atrocities were committed by the government sponsored Janjaweed militia.
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s security forces continued to target opposition party members, human rights defenders, students and political activists for arbitrary arrest, detention and other abuses. The rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly were arbitrarily restricted. The security and humanitarian situation in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan states remained dire, with widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
In 2019 major protests sparked off by massive increases in the price of goods, plus the fact that Bashir refused to step down eventually led to the overthrow of the government in April 2019. A transitional government is now in place, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, intending to guide Sudan towards democracy.
Written in December 2019 about a rapidly changing situation
References
Wikipedia
Amnesty International
New Internationalist
World Atlas