History Book: A nation’s journey from freedom to turmoil

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough. Up next: the WORLD History Book. Today, war in Sudan.

It’s been just over 18 months since fighting broke out between two formerly allied groups. The World Food Programme says nearly a quarter of the country’s 48 million residents have fled their homes. More than half of them face acute hunger,

EICHER: One U.N. official says it’s the worst humanitarian crisis in recent history but it’s gotten little media coverage, compared to the scale of the problem. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast explores the history of how the country got to this point.

LINDSAY MAST: Sudan’s story stretches far back into history. The area was part of both ancient Kush and Egypt… and Christian kingdoms in the middle ages. In the early 1800s an Ottoman ruler from Egypt conquered Sudan. It later spent decades under joint British-Egyptian control. Sudan gained independence in 1956.

Audio from British Pathé.

NEWSREEL: The world has gained a new nation. The Sudan, for 58 years under joint rule by Britain and Egypt, becomes a republic.

The country was…and is… huge. In 1956, Sudan covered nearly a million square miles–about the size of Alaska and Texas combined. It borders the Red Sea and connects Africa to the Arab world…and Northern Africa to the sub-Saharan region. That tension of geography and culture has played a part in political struggles for much of the country’s history.

NEWSREEL: The proclamation is read from the balcony of the House of Representatives in Khartoum and the new flag is hoisted: blue for the Nile, yellow for the desert, green for agriculture.

Just before gaining independence, a civil war broke out that lasted for 17 years. On one side, the wealthy, mostly Arab and Muslim north. On the other, the south: less-developed…and generally Christian or animist.

The BBC reports the war killed an estimated half million people. A peace agreement signed in 1972 didn’t fully quell the tension.

Then, in 1983, President Gaafar Al-Nimeiry (Nih-my-ree) declared an Islamist revolution and introduced Sharia law into the country. Audio here from a supporter shortly after it went into effect.

AUDIO: The whole Muslim world is witnessing an Islamic renaissance. So people are interested in how Islam would develop into a civilization.

The experiment sparked an even deadlier, longer war. Between fighting, famine and disease, this time, some two million people died.

In the 1990s, troops from the north targeted Christian villages in the south. An estimated 20-thousand young boys from the south fled en masse. They traveled more than a thousand miles on foot…to Ethiopia, back to Sudan, then Kenya… It took years. Half of them died. The survivors become known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. More than 3000 would eventually be resettled in the United States. Audio here of one of the Lost Boys, courtesy KTEH-TV:

SIMON DENG: What actually kept me going is the faith that I have and a lot of advice from my parents that encouraged me to choose that path, to choose light in that time.

In 1989, a coup brought Omar Al-Bashir to power. He later appointed himself president…then abolished parliament, and political parties. The brutal leader would stay in power for nearly thirty years. The International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes and genocide more than 15 years ago, though he has yet to stand trial.

Those charges came after the government encouraged Arab militias to control a rebellion in 2003. Those militias, including the Islamist Janjaweed, were accused of rapes, torture, and killing. They drove people from black, African tribes from their homes in Darfur.

The second civil war ended in 2005 and six years later a referendum granted independence to the southern part of the country.

AUDIO: There the flag being raised for the new republic of South Sudan, a historic moment, an extraordinary moment…

Back in Sudan, another coup in 2019. After four months of protests, Omar Al-Bashir was ousted from power. The streets of the capital of Khartoum erupted in celebration.

A joint civilian and military transitional government was set up. But in April 2023, fighting broke out between the two military groups that had previously worked together to overthrow Al-Bashir.

On one side, the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF–the official Sudanese military. On the other, the Rapid Support Forces, known as the RSF whose leader previously headed the Janjaweed militia.

This is not a true civil war–it’s a brutal power struggle between two military factions, yet it is far reaching. A UN fact finding mission reports both groups have committed-quote- “an appalling range of harrowing human rights violations and international crimes,” It also found grounds to believe that the RSF has additionally engaged in crimes against humanity.

Now, after 18 months of fighting and displacement, millions of people don’t have enough food. Reuters reports both sides have engaged in blocking aid efforts. An international committee monitoring global food supply confirmed famine conditions in a displacement camp housing an estimated half-million people.

Edem Wosornu, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:

WOSORNU: When famine happens it means we are too late. It means we did not do enough. This is an entirely man-made crisis and a shameful stain on our collective conscience.

Experts say there is no readily apparent path to ending this war. Recent U.S.-led peace talks ended after representatives from the Sudanese military failed to appear. The only thing that seems clear is that until one or both sides stands down, many in Sudan will continue to suffer.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast.

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