Country profilesSudan

Humanitarian profile

War dominated Sudan throughout the end of the 20^th century and the start of the 21^st century, triggering  humanitarian crises. Fighting between the north and south of the country killed an estimated 1.5 million people and another 200,000 died in a conflict in the western region of Darfur. Many more fled their homes. Sudan is one of the biggest recipients of aid in Africa.

Country snapshot

Sudan, Africa's biggest country, has faced near constant conflict since independence from Britain in 1956. A peace deal ended a two-decade cycle of north-south civil war in 2005, but fighting continues in the western region of Darfur.

The country's diversity is also the source of tension among its people who are split along ethnic, tribal and religious lines. The Islamist central government is based in the Arabised Muslim north, while the south is home to a mix of African ethnic groups that mainly follow Christian and traditional beliefs.

Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is the only sitting head of state wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur.

Sudan gained rogue state status in the West after Washington

listed it in 1993 as a sponsor of terrorism because of Khartoum's record of hosting militant Islamists, including al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Sweeping economic sanctions against the state followed in 1997.

Bordering nine countries, Sudan has had troubled relations

with many of them. Khartoum has been accused of giving support

to the northern Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels,

engaging in a proxy war with Chad, and being involved in a

failed assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

in Ethiopia in 1995.

Government

Sudan's central government is based in Khartoum.

On April 26, 2010, Omar Hassan al-Bashir won Sudan's first

open elections in 24 years in a result that confirms in office

the only sitting head of state wanted by the International

Criminal Court for war crimes.

Bashir won 68 percent of the presidential vote, while Salva Kiir retained his job as the president of Sudan's semi-autonomous south, with 92.99 percent of the vote in that race. Bashir was expected to form a coalition with Kiir as the country heads toward a 2011 referendum on whether south Sudan should split off and become Africa's newest state.

Sudan's president is both head of state and head of the government. The president appoints the cabinet and the vice-president.

Economy

Decades of conflict and a lack of basic infrastructure mean that many Sudanese live off subsistence farming and survive at or below the poverty line. However for the elite and small middle class in Khartoum, living standards have boomed recently with increased oil exports and until 2008 -- when a global financial crisis hit the world economy -- surging oil prices.

Oil plays a major role in the economy. Sudan has been an oil exporter since 1999. The U.S. Energy Information Administration

estimated that in 2008 Sudan produced about 480,000 barrels of

oil a day. It has proven reserves of about 5 billion barrels of oil and is in the top 35 world producers. Nigeria by comparison holds Africa's biggest store of proven reserves which is around seven times bigger than Sudan's.

In 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund, oil

represented 95 percent of export revenues and 60 percent of

government revenues. For South Sudan, oil represented 98 percent

of total revenues for the year compared to Khartoum at 65 percent.

Agriculture remains important because it employs 80 percent

of the work force and contributes a third of gross domestic

product (GDP). It remains a net importer of food.

History

Anglo-Egyptian forces captured Khartoum in 1889, jointly-administering Africa's largest country. The British separated north and south until 1947, giving political power to the northern elite before Sudan gained independence in 1956.

Fearing marginalisation by north, southern army officers mutinied in 1955, forming the Anya-Nya (snake venom) guerrilla movement.

The military-led government of President Jaafar Nimieri agreed to autonomy for the south in 1972. However repeated violations of the deal by the government combined with its growing campaign to give the country an Islamic identity and the discovery of oil in the south led to a resumption of war.

In 1983, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the main

southern rebel group led by John Garang, launched a war against

the northern-based government, partly sparked by its imposition

of Islamic sharia law.

The war pitted the black African south, which mainly follows

Christianity and traditional beliefs, against the mainly Muslim,

Arabic-speaking north. The war was complicated by tribal and factional fighting, as well as the conflict over oil.

On June 30, 1989, Lieutenant-General Omar Hassan al-Bashir

seized power in bloodless coup, toppling the democratically elected civilian government of former Prime Minister Sadeq al-Mahdi.

The son of a farmer, Bashir graduated from Sudan's military academy in 1966 and was a career army officer who rose to the rank of general. In October 1993, he dissolved the military junta which brought him to power and appointed himself civilian president in a move designed to establish Islamic government in Sudan as stable and civilian-based.

During the first decade of his rule, Bashir alienated many neighbours and Western governments with his increasingly

extremist interpretation of Islam and alleged support for foreign Islamic radicals.

Saudi-born al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based in

Sudan in the 1990s before being expelled. Relations between

Bashir's government and the United States hit a low when

Washington bombed a pharmaceuticals plant near Khartoum in 1998 in retaliation for bomb attacks on its embassies in Kenya and

Tanzania, saying the owner had ties to bin Laden and that the plant was making ingredients for chemical weapons. Sudan denied the charge.

As the war deepened, Sudan began oil production in the 1990s

mostly with the help of Chinese firms, despite U.S. sanctions.

After more than two decades of fighting, Bashir's government forged a peace deal in 2005 with the SPLA, giving the south its

own government and allowing southerners a referendum on

secession, due to be held on Jan. 9, 2011. The north-south war

had killed 2 million people and sent millions more fleeing.

Barely two weeks after SPLA leader Garang was sworn in as

Sudan's first vice-president, the burly former rebel was killed

in a helicopter crash close on the border with Uganda. Garang's

No. 2, Salva Kiir, took his place in a power-sharing government.

Even as the north-south conflict was coming closer to resolution, ethnic and politically motivated fighting flared in Sudan's western region of Darfur from 2003. The United Nations estimates 300,000 have died due to the conflict and more than 2 million have been driven from their homes. Sudan says the death toll is far lower.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, accused Bashir in July 2008 of masterminding a

campaign of genocide in Darfur. In March 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and

crimes against humanity -- charges that Bashir denies.

Despite the indictment, Bashir was re-elected president in April 2010, in the first open elections in 24 years. He became the first sitting head of state wanted by the ICC. The vote was marred by opposition boycotts and allegations of widespread fraud.

Legal snapshot

Islamic law applies to the northern part of Sudan but not in the Christian and animist south where English common law is predominant. There are separate judicial hierarchies for the two

systems. In general, the laws that do not refer to Southern Sudan are based on sharia law.

A national supreme court and national court of appeals supposedly oversees Sudan's legal system. However, the rule of law is limited in the country.

An independent judiciary that functions free from political influence still does not exist in Sudan, but the Comprehensive

Peace Agreement of 2000 includes international training of the

judiciary to start a process towards independence.

Sudan is ranked close to the bottom of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index along with Chad,

Iraq, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

Companies that seek to do business with the Sudanese government should know that doing so often entails bribes and

kickbacks, according to the Business Anti-Corruption Portal. Moreover, government and business elites are strongly interlinked in Sudan, it says.