Sudan’s Civil War

Randy Olson

Aurora / National Geographic Society

Sudan is the largest country in Africa and hosts a civil war between the Islamic north and the African south that has the highest casualty rate of any war since World War II. Two and a half million people have been killed in this insidious conflict. It drags on because southerners have no voice and northerners have engineered 'The Perfect War' where none of their people are killed. The North forces people out of the south with bombs, burning their crops, and by gunship harassment, and then abducts their children and drafts them to fight with the northern army--forcing southerners to fight their own brothers. This story is particularly interesting now because there is a small window for peace in this civil war that has been dragging on since the end of colonial rule. This war has always been about tribal issues and ideology... but more than that, it has always been about resources. The clash over resources may bring peace. The north controls the oil pipeline and the south controls the land.

Randy Olson, "Sudan’s Civil War," in POYi Archive, Item #32661, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/32661 (accessed November 23, 2024).