Sudan, Africa’s biggest country, spans multiple religious, ethnic and socio-economic divides: between Muslims and Christians, Arab and African, nomad and farmer. Sudan’s triple conflicts – the South, Darfur (West) and East – reflects these to varying degrees, exacerbated by struggles over natural resources. Though oil was discovered in southern Sudan in 1978, the majority of Sudanese remain desperately poor. Sudan’s longest civil war began in 1983, largely pitting the Muslim north against the Christian and Animist south, and killing at least 2 million people and displacing a further 4 million. Over time, it developed into a national conflict, with the rebels incorporating large groups of Muslims from throughout the north, and the government allying with many non-Muslim southerners. At the heart of Sudan’s three crises are resistance to the marginalising political and economic policies of the Islamist ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP), and the attendant desire for greater political autonomy and share in national wealth.

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