\n Sudan, where fighting is raging between the army and paramilitary forces led by rival generals, has a history of civil strife and coups.\n<\/p>\n
\n Here are five things to know about the vast east African country:\n<\/p>\n
\n - Same ruler for 30 years -\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan was ruled for three decades by career soldier Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bashir seized power in a 1989 coup during the second of two civil wars fought by the mainly Muslim north against the mainly Christian and animist south after Sudan gained independence in 1956.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under Bashir, an Islamist, floggings were frequently meted out for crimes such as adultery and drinking alcohol.\n<\/p>\n
\n He signed a peace deal with the south in 2005 but was accused of widespread atrocities in the western Darfur region, where he deployed a brutal Arab militia in 2003, known as the Janjaweed, to suppress a rebellion by non-Arab rebels in a war that left hundreds of thousands dead.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2013, the Janjaweed fighters were formed into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the heavily armed paramilitary force that is currently battling Sudan's military.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bashir was deposed by the army in 2019 after a popular uprising triggered by the tripling of the price of bread. The military seized power again in 2021, led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Split in two -\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan endured two civil wars between its northern and southern regions, the first from 1955 to 1972 and the second from 1983 to 2005. Millions died in the conflicts.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under the terms of a 2005 peace deal, the Southerners were allowed to hold an independence referendum.\n<\/p>\n
\n In January 2011, 99 percent voted to secede and the independent state of South Sudan was born six months later.\n<\/p>\n
\n The split removed roughly a quarter of the territory of what had been Africa's largest country.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan also lost most of its oil fields, which are situated in South Sudan.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Bin Laden links -\n<\/p>\n
\n The late leader of the Al-Qaeda terror network, Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years in the 1990s, investing heavily in the local economy.\n<\/p>\n
\n But he was expelled in 1996 after the US piled pressure on Khartoum to expel suspected terrorists.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two years later, Al-Qaeda bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 200 people. The US retaliated by bombing a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. Washington claimed the plant was linked to chemical weapons, which Sudan vehemently denied.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 2020 Sudan was removed from a US blacklist of alleged state sponsors of terror in a quid pro quo with Washington for normalising relations with Israel.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Gum power -\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan is the world's largest producer of gum arabic, a key ingredient used in everything from soft drinks to chewing gum and pharmaceuticals.\n<\/p>\n
\n The golden blobs of resin tapped from thorny acacia trees are one of Sudan's main foreign currency earners.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their importance to the world economy earned them a special exemption from the US trade embargo imposed on Sudan during the three decades of Bashir's rule.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, the trees themselves are drought resistant, helping Sudan, which is one of the countries worst affected by climate change, fight desertification.\n<\/p>\n
\n - More pyramids than Egypt -\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan's ancient civilisations built more pyramids than the Egyptians, but the ancient tombs of Meroe, about 220 kilometres (136 miles) north of Khartoum in the desert, remain largely unexplored.\n<\/p>\n
\n Meroe was the heartland of the Kush kingdom, which occupied Egypt for close to a century until the seventh century BC.\n<\/p>\n
\n Around 250 pyramids have been excavated at the UNESCO World Heritage Site since the 1960s.\n<\/p>\n
\n But unlike the grander Egyptian pyramids of Giza, they rarely receive visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan, where fighting is raging between the army and paramilitary forces led by rival generals, has a history of civil strife and coups. Here are five things to know about the vast east African country: - Same ruler for 30 years - Sudan was ruled for three decades by career soldier Omar al-Bashir, who is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-115576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n