Sudan Government vs Militias

Years 1983 2012 Battle deaths 68,769 The civil war in Sudan is a conflict between the Sudanese Government in Sudan and several militant groups of which some (for example SPLA) strive for an independent south and some (SLA, JEM) for an independent Darfur. The war has been ongoing since the 1980ies. The conflict in Darfur intensified in 2003. UCDP Prior to independence from Britain in 1956, there was a distinct division between southern and northern Sudan. Until 1946, the two regions were administered as separate entities, with northern Sudan being governed by the British protectorate Egypt, while the British themselves administered the southern part. There were large differences between the regions, geographically and culturally, as well as developmentally. Whereas the Arab Muslim north was, and still is, more advanced, the south, which is mainly inhabited by Christian and Animist Africans, was, and continues to be, remote and underdeveloped. When the two regions came together as one country, the colonial rulers handed over power to the Moslem elite in the north, and thus began the northern domination with subsequent tension between the two regions.