Timeline Sudan
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The largest country in Africa,
one-quarter the size of the US. The
Sudanese people speak over 100 languages. There are 19 major ethnic
groups that are further divided into more than 600 ethno-linguistic
groups. Southern Sudan is the size of France and Germany combined. The
Darfur region is nearly the size of France.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A8)(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.21)(Econ,
5/15/04, p.23)(Econ, 10/15/05, p.49)
Much of Sudan in ancient times
was known as Nubia.
(www.numibia.net)
The Dinka Tribe is the dominant
ethnic group of southern Sudan. They are renowned for their deep ebony
skin and height.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)
Sunni Muslims dominated the
government.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A4)
12000BC-10000BC
A site along the Nile River in Sudan has a graveyard (Site 117) of this
period that indicates warfare between communities.
(NH, Jul, p.31)
1991BC-1962BC Amenemhet I (Amenemhat I) founded
Egypt’s 12th Dynasty of Egypt and ruled for some 30 years. In 2007
Prof. Jahi Issa and Salim Faraji authored “The Origin of the Word Amen:
Ancient Knowledge the Bible Has Never Told,” in which they argued that
the word Amen is derived from a pre-dynastic Egyptian culture found in
the Sudan with roots in the ancient name for pharaoh, Amen, spelled in
some cases as Amun.
(http://www.ancient-egypt.org/history/11_13/12.html)(SSFC, 12/2/07,
p.A2)
1700BC Nubia, known as the Kingdom of Kush in the
Bible. By this time the Nubians have established sizable cities with a
class society of workers, farmers, priests, soldiers bureaucrats and an
aristocracy with technological and cultural skills on a level with
other advanced civilizations of their day.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)
750BC-719BC Piye (Piankhy) ruled
Kush (Nubia). In 722 he extended his rule to Egypt. Kashta, ruler of
Kush, had begun a campaign against Egypt. With the help of his son,
Piankhy, he was successful and Piankhy became pharaoh of Egypt. The
Nubian King Piye conquered the weakened and disunited Egypt and became
the first of several Nubian Pharaohs who ruled a unified Egyptian and
Nubian state for the next century.
(eawc, p.7)(MT, 10/95,
p.10-11)(www.crystalinks.com/dynasty21.html)
722BC Piye (Piankhy) marched north
from Nubia and began his conquest of Egypt where he founded the 25th
Dynasty. He consolidated his rule over Egypt and Kush and became the
1st king of the 25th Dynasty. It has been suggested that he revived
pyramid building for royals in Egypt, a tradition that had gone extinct
for over eight centuries.
(www.crystalinks.com/dynasty21.html)(Arch, 9/02,
p.55)
690BC-664BC The Nubian Pharaoh
Taharqa, brother of Shebitku, ruled over the upper Nile Nubian-Egyptian
state. He is mentioned in the Bible as a pyramid builder. A sculpture
of the Kushite king was discovered in the basement of "God's House
Tower," an archeological museum, in England in 2000.
(MT, 10/95, p.10-11)(SFC, 2/16/00,
p.A8)(www.crystalinks.com/dynasty21.html)(Arch, 9/02, p.55)
663BC The Kingdom of Kush was
driven out of Egypt but flourished in the Sudan until the 4th century
CE.
(NG, May 1985, p.607)
593BC The Nubians were defeated by
a resurgent Egyptian dynasty after which they moved their capital from
Napata to Meroe.
(Arch, 9/02, p.56)
270BC The Nubian royals opted for
burial at Meroe about this time and pyramids were built there for some
700 years.
(Arch, 9/02, p.56)
23-24 Strabo (b.~63-64BC), Greek
geographer and historian, died about this time. He had traveled to
Egypt and Kush, met members of the Noba tribe, and decided to call
their country Nubia. Strabo is mostly famous for his 17-volume work
Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places
from different regions of the world known to his era.
(Arch, 9/02,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabo)
350 In Sudan the last pyramid in
the Egyptian tradition was built at Meroe about this time.
(Arch, 9/02, p.55)
c1600 Mahmud al-Kati authored the
Tarikh al-Fattash, a history of the Sudan up to the late 16th century.
(AM, 7/04, p.36)
1862 Jun, Samuel and Florence
Baker arrived in Khartoum on their search for explorers John Speke and
James Grant.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1862 Dec 18, Samuel and Florence
Baker departed Khartoum on their search for explorers John Speke and
James Grant.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1863 Feb 15, Samuel and Florence
Baker encountered John Speke and James Grant at the frontier village of
Gondokoro (southern Sudan). Speke and Grant said they had found the
Nile’s headwaters at a lake they named Victoria.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1863 Mar 26, Samuel and Florence
Baker departed Gondokoro to find a lake called Luta N’Zige, through
which flowed a branch of the Nile.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1869-1899 In 2007 Dominic Green authored “Armies of
God: Islam and the Empire on the Nile, 1869-1899 – The First Jihad of
the Modern Era.”
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.75)
1876 Apr 11, General Sir Charles
("Chinese") Gordon ended religious tolerance in Sudan.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1877-79 British Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon served
as the governor of Sudan.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A21)
1879 Aug 23, Governor-general
Charles Gordon of Sudan returned to Cairo.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1881 Jun 19, Muhammad Ahmad became
Mahdi of Sudan. El Mahdi (The One Who is Guided by God), a Muslim
leader, soon united the disparate tribes of Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(ON, 4/02, p.9)(MC, 6/19/02)
1882 British Gen. Charles
"Chinese" Gordon (49) retired from active duty and moved to Jerusalem.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A21)
1882 Former British Gen. Charles
"Chinese" Gordon, Field Marshal in the Turkish army, commanded the
Egyptian forces in Sudan.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A21)
1883 Nov 3, A poorly trained
Egyptian army, led by British General William Hicks, marched toward El
Obeid in the Sudan--straight into a Mahdist ambush and massacre.
(HN, 11/3/98)
1883-1884 In Sudan British officered Egyptian armies
were defeated by the forces of El Mahdi, called Dervishes by the
British.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1884 Jan 18, General Charles
("Chinese") Gordon departed London for Khartoum.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1884 Jan, Lord Garnet Wolseley,
adjutant-general of the British Army, asked Charles Gordon to come out
of retirement and lead an evacuation of 15,000 European and Egyptian
civilians from Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon agreed.
(ON, 4/02, p.9)
1884 Feb 18, General Charles
Gordon arrived in Khartoum to battle the Mahdi and his terrorists.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1884 Mar 11, Gen. Gordon learned
that the telegraph cable to Cairo had been cut. Khartoum soldiers
killed 5 Mahdists at Halfaya. Mahdist insurgents in return massacred
150 men from the Khartoum garrison as they were cutting wood.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)
1884 Mar 13, Siege of Khartoum,
Sudan, began. Gen. Gordon ordered a counter-attack at Halfaya and
troops rescued some 500 from a Mahdist assault.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)(MC, 3/13/02)
1884 Mar 16, A 2nd counter-attack
at Halfaya failed and Gordon ordered 2 commanders to be executed.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)
1884 Oct 22, General Charles
Gordon received a letter from Mahdi near Khartoum. British Gen’l.
Charles "Chinese" Gordon was sent to Khartoum to evacuate the Egyptian
garrison. Gordon decided to hold the city against El Mahdi.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(MC, 10/22/01)
1884 Nov 3, A British steamboat
arrived a Khartoum with news that a relief force was on its way.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)
1885 Jan 2, Gen. Wolseley received
the last distress signal of Gen. Gordon in Khartoum.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1885 Jan 26, In Sudan General
"Chinese" Gordon (Charles George Gordon, 51), British gov-gen of Sudan,
was killed on the palace steps in the garrison at Khartoum by the
forces of Muhammad Ahmed, El Mahdi. In 1961 "General Gordon’s Khartoum
Journal," edited by Lord Elton, was published.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN, 1/26/99)(MC, 1/26/02)(ON,
4/02, p.10)
1885 Jan 28, Gen’l. Garnet
Wolseley arrived at Khartoum to relieve Gen’l. Gordon, but arrived 2
days late. El Mahdi died soon thereafter but was succeeded by the
Khalifa.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(ON, 4/02, p.10)
1886 Henry Stanley (1841-1904),
Welsh-born journalist, led the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to "rescue"
Emin Pasha, the governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley)
1896 Sep 21, General Horatio
Kitchener's army occupied Dongola, Sudan. Gen’l. Herbert Kitchener led
the British conquest of the Sudan. The "kit bag," another name for a
knapsack, was named after him.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(MC,
9/21/01)
1897 Aug 31, General Kitchener
occupied Berber, North of Khartoum.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1898 Apr 8, British General
Horatio Kitchener defeated the Khalifa, leader of the dervishes in
Sudan, at the Battle of Atbara. Anglo-Egyptian forces crushed 6,000
Sudanese.
(HN, 4/8/99)(MC, 4/8/02)
1898 Sep 1, Lord Kitchener's army
bombed Omdurman, Sudan. Lt. Winston Churchill approached Omdurman, the
rebel capital, as a scout in the cavalry along with the rest of Gen.
Kitchener's army of 25,000 men. [see Sep 2]
(ON, 10/99, p.2)(MC, 9/1/02)
1898 Sep 2, Anglo-Egyptian lines
under Gen’l. Kitchener were charged by 50,000 fanatical Dervishes and
were mowed down by howitzers, machine guns and rifles. Lt. Winston
Churchill led one of the last (and most useless) cavalry charges in
history. Sir Herbert Kitchener led the British to victory over the
Mahdists at Omdurman and took Khartoum. The Dervishes left 11,000 dead
and 16,000 wounded. The Anglo-Egyptian army suffered fewer than a dozen
casualties. In 1899 Winston Churchill published "The River War, An
Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan." This was the 1st use of the
machine gun in battle.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN, 9/2/98)(ON, 10/99,
p.3)(MC, 9/2/01)
1898 Sep 6, Lord Kitchener
destroyed Mahdi's tomb in Omdurman (Sudan).
(MC, 9/6/01)
1899 Nov 24, Abdullah ibn Mohammed
al-Ta'a'ishi, Mahdi of Sudan (1883-99), died.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1902 The novel "The Four Feathers"
by A.E.W. Mason, was published. It was set mainly in England and
Ireland over the years 1882-1888 during England’s war in the Sudan and
went on to inspire 7 films.
(SFC, 9/20/02,
p.D1)(http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/books/4feather.htm)
1907 The first primary school for
girls was founded by the Bedris family. It grew to become the private
Ahfad University.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)
1916 Independent sultanates ruled
the Darfur region of Sudan until this year.
(WPR, 3/04, p.32)
1916 George Reisner (1867-1942),
American archeologist, began excavating pyramids at Meroe, Sudan.
(Arch, 9/02,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mero%C3%AB)
1917 Darfur was an independent
sultanate until 1917, when it was the last region to be incorporated
into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Fur, largely peasant farmers, occupy
the central belt of the region Also in this central zone are the
non-Arab Masalit, Berti, Bargu, Bergid, Tama and Tunjur peoples, who
are all sedentary farmers.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm)
1924 Nov 22, England ordered the
Egyptians out of Sudan.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1924 Slave trading was made
illegal.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A15)
1941 Feb 16, The Italians lost
their last position in the Sudan.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1954 Mar 1, Rebellion during visit
of President Naguib in Khartoum Sudan, 30 die.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1955 Fighting erupted between
north and south Sudan. The black southerners are Christian and animist,
while the northerners are mostly Arabic and Muslim. Southern troops
mutinied and demanded autonomy or secession.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C8)
1956 Jan 1, Sudan became
independent from Britain. Northern Muslim parties took over rule.
Southerners demanded autonomy and civil war began.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(SFC, 11/17/00, p.A20)(WSJ,
10/22/03, p.A4)(Econ, 5/15/04, p.21)
1957 Mohammed Wardi (26) began his
singing career in Sudan. He became known as the Golden Throat and
blended Nubian music into the Arabic language.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A12)
1958 In Sudan the 1st in a series
of military coups overthrew the civilian-elected government.
(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A4)
1959 A water agreement between
Egypt and Sudan was based on an annual net yield of 96.2 billion cubic
yards of water and gave Egypt 72.15 billion and Sudan 20.04. Ethiopia
got no allocation and never recognized the treaty.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A1)
1960s Leni Riefenstahl, German
filmmaker, published a collection of photographs of the Nuba tribe of
southern Sudan.
(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A19)
1969 May 25, Sudanese government
was overthrown in a military coup. Gaafar an-Nimeiry (1930-2009),
came to power with the support of communist and socialist leaders.
(http://countrystudies.us/sudan/23.htm)(AP, 5/31/09)
1970 Nov 27, Syria joined the pact
linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1971 Mohammed Wardi,
Nubian-Sudanese singer known as the Golden Throat, began a 2 year
prison term under the authoritarian regime of Gen. Jaafar Nimeiri, who
ruled Sudan from 1969-1985.
(SFC, 9/21/07,
p.A12)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/350170.stm)
1970s Large quantities of oil were
discovered under south-central Sudan.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)
1972 Mar 27, The Addis Ababa
accords ended fighting between north and south Sudan. It made the south
a self-governing region. Pres. Gaafar Muhammed Nimeiri ended the 17
year civil war in the Sudan between the north and south.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/sudan-civil-war1.htm)(WSJ,
10/22/03, p.A4)
1973 Mar 2, Arab commandos, "Black
September" terrorists, led by Abu Jihad executed 3 hostages: US
ambassador Cleo A. Noel (54), deputy George Curtis Moore (47) and
Belgian charge d’affaires Guy Eid (38), in Khartoum, Sudan. Pres. Nixon
refused their demands. The operation was later reported to have been
organized by Yasser Arafat.
(WSJ, 1/10/02,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_diplomatic_assassinations)
1973 Sep, Gen. Jaafar Nimeiri,
Sudan’s military ruler, introduced Islamic Sharia law.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/350170.stm)
1973 Hassan Turabi, Sudanese
scholar, authored "Women in Islam and Muslim Society."
(www.soundvision.com/Info/women/turabi.asp)
1976 The deadly Ebola virus was
1st identified in western Sudan and the nearby region of Congo.
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A6)
1978 Chevron discovered oil in
Sudan and sank wells north of Bentiu.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)(WSJ, 10/22/03,
p.A4)(www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/10.htm)
1980 The giant Kenana sugar
processing plant opened in Sudan. In 2002 El Nazir, Osman & Desai,
and Govind D. authored “Kenana: Green Gold of Sudan.”
(www.shell-me.com/english/oct2002/views1.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/2vpzhc)
1980 French oil giant Total SA
leased an oil patch in southern Sudan the size of Pennsylvania. In 2005
the lease came under dispute as southern Sudan gained limited autonomy
and signed an oil deal with London-based White Nile Ltd.
(WSJ, 6/19/06,
p.A1)(www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20234)
1983 Sudan’s Pres. Gaafar Numeiri
brought in Sharia law as the basis for criminal law causing much
grievance in the non-Muslim south.
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.44)
1983 Civil War began again in the
Sudan when the People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) renewed the battle for
greater autonomy from the Muslim north. The discovery of oil in the
middle of the country and the imposition of Shariah law by the
government reignited violence.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)(SSFC,
3/25/01, p.C8)
1983-1987 Drought in Sudan drove nomadic Zaghawa and
Arab groups southwards into the central Fur region of Jebel Marra.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm)
1983-1998 The civil war killed some 1.5 million
people over this period.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A10)
1984 Sudan enacted a land-tenure
law that allowed the government to take over land abandoned for one
year.
(SFC, 12/4/04, p.A8)
1984 War rekindled in the Sudan. A
government official stated that: "The southerners were being used by
the Marxist Ethiopians and by Col. Qaddafi of Libya to cause trouble
for Sudan." Pres. Nimeiri set an edict to make Islamic law the code of
the land. The Sudanese People’s Liberation Army was led by John Garang
a former Sudanese army colonel with a Ph.D. in economics from Iowa St.
Univ.
(NG, May 1985, p.609)
1984 Chevron Corp. pulled out of
Sudan after rebels killed 3 employees.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)
1985 Jan 18, In Sudan Mahmud
Mohammed Taha (b.1909) was hanged for refusing to recant his unorthodox
views on Islam. Sudanese president Jaafar Nimeiri, on the advice of
Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, ordered the execution.
(AFP,
4/23/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Mohamed_Taha)
1985 Apr 4, A coup in Sudan ousted
pro US President Gaafar Nimeiry and replaced him with Gen. Dahab.
(HN, 4/4/99)(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A19)
1985 Christian Col. John Garang
and Muslim leader Sadiq el-Mahdi helped to restore democracy, but soon
grew at odds.
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.A14)
1985 The people of the Nuba
Mountains allied themselves with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army
(SPLA) after government backed Arab militias attacked their villages.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.D1)
1986 May 15, In Sudan Francis Bok
(7) was kidnapped when Arabs from a government-armed militia swept into
his village shooting the men and cutting off their heads with swords.
(WSJ, 5/23/02, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/ybn8g5)
1986 Ahmed Al-Mirghani (d.2008 at
67) headed the last democratically elected government of Sudan until
1989 before a military coup led by current President Omar al-Bashir
unseated him.
(AP, 11/3/08)
1986 In Sudan Sadiq al-Mahdi
became the country’s last democratically elected prime minister.
(Econ, 12/13/08, p.68)
1986 Sudan became subject to
American sanctions. The IMF ended financial assistance to Sudan.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.42)
1986-1989 Arms were channeled into Darfur by Sudan’s
central government under Sadiq al-Mahdi, which armed the southern
Baggara Arabs as a militia to fight against the SPLA (at that time
threatening insurgency in the region), and also armed the northern Arab
tribes, who were loyal to the Ansar of the Prime Minister's Umma Party.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm)
1988-1989 The war induced famine in Sudan killed some
250,000 people.
(SFC, 11/3/98, p.A10)
1989 Jun 30, In Sudan the elected
coalition government was overthrown. Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Sheik
Hassan al-Turabi, brother-in-law of Sadiq el-Mahdi, seized power. They
imposed an Iranian style theocracy along with the strict Muslim Shariah
law on the country including the Christian southern Sudan. The National
Islamic Front (NIF) overthrew a democratic government under prime
minister Sadiq el-Mahdi and have ruled ever since. The Umma Party and
the Democratic Union party established bases in Cairo and Eritrea and
later allied with rebel groups that included the Southern People's
Liberation Party.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A12)(SFC,
12/29/98, p.A6)
1989 A peace conference in
mid-1989, mediated by the Sultan of the minority Masalit, temporarily
settled some issues between Arabs and Fur. The government was forced to
admit publicly that the problem was not merely one of banditry.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darf.htm)
1989 The NIF divided the 9
provinces of Sudan’s Darfur region into 26, weakening the traditional
tribal leadership.
(WPR, 3/04, p.32)
1989 A devastating draught
prompted the international community to launch a massive relief effort
called Operation Lifeline Sudan.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)
1989 An attack on Danbar, one of
the villages in the Wade Saleh, left 226 people dead from the non-Arab
population.
(www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/Darfur2.htm)
1990 Mar, Following the Sudanese
government's failure to make any move toward restoring democracy after
the June 1989 military coup, the US government suspended all
development assistance to Sudan under Section 513 of the Foreign
Assistance Act, which mandates a cutoff in most U.S. aid to any nation
where an elected government has been overthrown in a coup. However,
food aid under P.L. 480 and humanitarian assistance are permitted to
continue.
(www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/AFW-09.htm)
1990 Islamist leader Hassan
al-Turabi invited Osma bin Laden to Sudan and provided him with a safe
haven from 1991 to 1996, when the Al-Qaeda chief was eventually
expelled under mounting international pressure on Khartoum.
(AFP, 4/23/06)
1991 Nov 26, UNICEF said fighting
and crop failures in southern Sudan had forced an unprecedented exodus
of 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1991 Dec 13, Iran’s Pres. Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Sudan with some 157 officials. He signed
agreements to train Sudan’s Popular Defense Forces, a version of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards, and agreed to pay China $300 million for weapons
ordered for Sudan.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.50)(http://tinyurl.com/d6ruxp)
1991 Sudan adopted a federal
system with nine states, matching the nine provinces that had existed
from 1948 to 1973. The states were subdivided into 66 provinces, and
then into 281 local government areas.
(www.statoids.com/usd.html)
1991 The Sudan People’s Liberation
Army, the main rebel group, began to divide along tribal lines and now
four factions control the south.
(SFC, 4/15/96,A-8)
1991 The National Democratic
Alliance began as an opposition grouping.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A19)
1991 Sudanese intelligence
approached Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and invited him to move to
Khartoum, which he did.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.A20)
1991 In Sudan an Arab tribe sought
to resolve ancient disputes over land and water rights by attacking the
Zaghawa, Fur, and Massalit peoples in Darfur. Arab groups launched a
campaign in Southern Darfur State that resulted in the destruction of
some 600 non-Arab villages and the deaths of about 3,000 people.
(www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/36028.htm)
1992 In Kenya the Kakuma camp was
founded for some 30,000 refugees from Sudan.
(WSJ, 10/23/02, p.B1)
1994 Feb 4, In Khartoum, Sudan,
five armed men attacked the mosque of Ansar al-Sunna during Friday
prayers, killing 19 and injuring 26 of the worshippers.
(www.africa.upenn.edu/Newsletters/SNV_2.html)
1994 Aug 14, Ilich Ramirez
Sanchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal," was captured in
Khartoum, Sudan. He was jailed in France the next day.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A18)(AP, 8/15/97)
1994 Osama bin Laden arrived in
Sudan from Afghanistan. He used his own money to finance road
construction projects in the desert north of Khartoum.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A15)
1994 Ali A. Mohamed, a former US
Army sergeant, allegedly trained bodyguards for bin Laden in Khartoum
according to a 1999 US indictment.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A2)
1994 Sudan’s government began
funding the (LTA) Lord’s Resistance Army in retaliation for Uganda’s
support of the southern-based rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1996 Feb. 27, A Sudanese military
plane crashed 25 miles south of Khartoum and killed 91 people on board.
The plane was a US made C-130.
(WSJ, 2/28/96, p.A-1)
1996 April 26, The UN called for
sanctions against Sudan.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 4, A Sudanese passenger
plane crashed and killed all 53 onboard. The plane was a Russian
Antonov-24 and had tried to land outside of Khartoum in an area cleared
for a new airport because sand covered the runways at Khartoum.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-14)
1996 May 20, Britain ordered the
expulsion of 3 Sudanese diplomats as part of the UN’s April 26 call for
sanctions.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-1)
1996 May 28, Sudan asked Muslim
militants to leave in an attempt to end UN diplomatic sanctions. The UN
imposed sanctions to force the turn over of three suspects in the 1995
assassination attempt on Egypt’s Pres. Mubarek.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. A-18)
1996 May 28, Two human rights
groups accused Sudan of rights violations. Amnesty Int’l. reported that
children were kidnapped, enslaved and shot. Human Rights Watch in
Nairobi, Kenya, said that the denial of basic freedoms is routine and
that an arms embargo should be imposed on all sides in the civil war.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
1996 May, Osama bin Laden was
driven out of Sudan under pressure from the Clinton administration. His
horse, “Swift Like the Wind,” was left behind. He had lived there for
some years running a construction company and allegedly recruiting and
training terrorists. Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Saudi Arabian-backed
jihadist leader, invited bin Laden back to Afghanistan and bin Laden
returned.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A2)(SFC, 12/17/04, p.W4)(Econ,
9/17/05, p.40)(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A4)
1996 Jul 12, At least 700,000
people were facing starvation in southern Sudan because of the Khartoum
government’s refusal to allow large-scale food aid.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A14)
1996 Aug 31, Torrential rains
threatened Sudan and Egypt with floods.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A4)
1996 Oct, Former prime minister
Sadiq el-Mahdi escaped house arrest in Khartoum and fled to Eritrea.
1996 Nov 2, Some 160,000 Beja
people faced famine in northern Sudan because of a 2-year draught in
the region.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A18)
1996 Oct, After a peace agreement
was established between Pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir and 6 minor rebel
factions, Kerubino [Kuayin] Kwanying Bol, a founding members of the
rebels, was promoted to major general in the Sudanese army and attacked
Bahr el Ghazal. Farming in this province of the Dinka tribe was
disrupted and led to famine. Rebel leader John Garang refused to go
along. Bol was a liberation army commander who switched allegiance to
the government’s side and then turned on the civilian population in his
home territory.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A17)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A8)
1996 The Ashifa plant in Khartoum
opened as a 50-50 venture between Bashir Hassan Bashir and a shipping
company called Baaboud Trading and Shipping Agencies. The plant
supplied malaria tablets and veterinary medicine for cattle. It was
sold in 1998 to Salaheldin Idris.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A9)
1996 In Sudan’s Abyei region the
Heglig oil field was first developed and operated by the Greater Nile
Petroleum Operating Company. Sudan held a majority stake, with shares
owned by companies from China, Malaysia and India.
(AP, 7/22/09)
1996 The Red Cross suspended field
work in Sudan after 2 members of its staff were seized briefly by a
splinter rebel group.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1996 The US embassy in Khartoum
was abandoned.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1997 Jan 28, The government faced
a new rebel offensive.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Jan, Many of the rebel
opposition leaders were arrested in Khartoum.
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.A14)
1997 Mar 1, The government signed
an agreement to build a 900-mile pipeline from the southern oilfields
to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Chinese National Petroleum would control
40% and Petronas of Malaysia would own 30% through its state owned oil
company.
(WSJ, 3/11/97, p.A22)(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)
1997 Mar 9, The national
Democratic Alliance (NDA) began an offensive in the southern state of
Equatoria.
(SFC, 4/3/97, p.A10)
1997 Mar 21, Rebel leader John
Garang prepared to attack Juba and claimed that the entire southern
Sudan was under their control. Government information minister Tayeb
Ibrahim Mohamed Kheir claimed that Ugandan forces were involved with
the rebels.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.C1)
1997 May, In the village of Marial
Bai, raiders killed 23 people and stole livestock. 67 women and
children were missing and believed to have been abducted.
(SFC, 7/31/97, p.A10)
1997 Sep, Gen. Omar Bashir
accepted a 3-year-old proposal to hold direct negotiations with the
Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
(SFC,10/30/97, p.A12)
1997 Nov 4, US sanctions against
Sudan were tightened due to the Iran-allied government’s support for
int’l. terrorism and abysmal human-rights record. After lobbying by
trade associations the sanctions excluded US imports for gum arabic, a
key ingredient for soft drinks, and other goods as an emulsifier.
(WSJ, 11/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 12/2/97, p.A8)
1997 Production of gum arabic from
the acacia tree accounted for nearly half of Sudan’s $20 million annual
exports to the US. The derivative is used in soft drinks, cookies, and
printing ink.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A14)
1997 China began investing in
Sudan following US sanctions there. By 2005 Sudan provided China with
about 5% if its oil imports.
(WSJ, 3/29/05, p.A2)
1998 Jan 30, The city of Wau fell
to rebels who pretended to defect and then attacked from inside.
(SFC, 1/31/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 12, Lt. Gen’l. Al-Zubeir
Mohammad Saleh, the country’s first vice-president, was killed along
with 7 others in a plane crash in the southern Sudan. Rebels of the
SPLA claimed to have shot the plane down.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D5)
1998 Apr 2, Sudanese soldiers shot
and beat to death 74 student conscripts who tried to flee the Ailafoon
military camp. At least 55 others drowned when their boat capsized on
the blue Nile while they tried to escape.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A12)
1998 May 14, The Red Cross
announced that it would resume operations after an 18-month break due
the kidnapping of 2 staff members.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.D3)
1998 Jun 10, Three aid workers
were killed when gunmen opened fire on a UN relief convoy.
(SFC, 6/11/98, p.C2)
1998 Jun 30, Bombs were set off on
this 9th anniversary of the coup that brought the National Islamic
Front to power. 2 Catholic priests and 20 other men were arrested in
August for the bombing. The 2 priests and at least 18 others were
released in Dec 1999.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A16)
1998 Jun, A new constitution was
ratified.
(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A6)
1998 Jul 15, Sudanese rebels
declared a 3 month cease fire to allow food shipments to reach hundreds
of thousands hungry people in the southwest.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 29, A UNICEF report said
130 people were dying every day in Ajiep out of a refugee population of
70,000 from famine. A program to provide 15,000 tons of food a month
was planned. It would exceed the 1948 Berlin Airlift.
(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A10)(SFC, 7/30/98, p.A16)
1998 Aug 3, The government
declared a unilateral cease-fire.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.A12)
1998 cAug 7, Immediately after the
bombing of 2 US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Sudanese authorities
arrested 2 men suspected of being involved in the plot.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.A12)
1998 Aug 20, Pres. Clinton ordered
cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan. About 50 missiles were
fired at the camp of Osama Bin Laden and some 25 missiles against a
suspected chemical plant in Khartoum. The plant in Sudan was suspected
of producing the chemical EMPTA, one of the ingredients in VX nerve
gas, but also an ingredient in fungicides and anti-microbial agents.
The US Operation Infinite Reach began in Afghanistan and Sudan and cost
over $50 million.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A10)(WSJ,
9/22/99, p.A8)
1998 Aug 20, A missile attack
destroyed the Sugar Sweet and Candy factory of Mustafa S. Ismaeil and
killed a guard there. The owner planned to sue the US for damages.
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 21, Pres. Omar el-Bashir
said that Sudan could prove that the bombed Shifa Pharmaceutical
factory was not used for chemical weapons. Ten people were reportedly
treated for injuries and damages were estimated at $100 million.
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A1,3)
1998 cAug 21, Sudanese
authorities, angered by the US attack of US cruise missiles, released 2
men suspected in the bombing of 2 US embassies on Aug 7. The men were
sent to Pakistan.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.A12)
1998 Aug 24, It was reported that
Salaheldin Idris, a Saudi Arabian banker, planned to sue the US for $50
million for damages to his Ashifa pharmaceutical factory.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A9)
1998 Sep 2, It was reported that
US officials acknowledged that they were not aware that Sudan’s Shifa
factory produced human and veterinary medicines. The admitted that
their only knowledge about what the plant produced came from its Web
site.
(SFC, 9/2/98, p.A9)
1998 Oct 15, Foreign Minister
Mustafa Osman Ismail said that Sudan will allow the UN to investigate
any site alleged to be making chemical weapons.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.A13)
1998 Dec 10, The death toll from
the 15 year civil war was reported to have reached at least 1.9
million. A 40 nation African conference on refugees opened in Khartoum.
(SFC, 12/11/98, p.D3)
1999 Jan 1, All opposition parties
were to be allowed registration.
(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A6)
1999 Jan 15, The government and
rebels agreed to a 3-month extension of a cease-fire in a southwestern
province.
(SFC, 1/16/99, p.A11)
1999 Feb 8, An independent
scientist hired by the owner of the pharmaceutical plant bombed by the
US in August found no traces of chemical weapons.
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A8)
1999 Feb 23, In Khartoum health
officials reported that some 140 people had died from meningitis and
that another 1000 suffered from the disease.
(SFC, 2/24/99, p.C3)
1999 Mar 5, From Sudan it was
reported that southern rebels had kidnapped 7 people working with the
Int'l. Committee of the Red Cross near the town of Bentiu, 500 miles
south of Khartoum.
(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Apr 28, The US announced that
it would allow US firms to sell food and medicine to Iran, Sudan and
Libya.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.A3)
1999 May 3, The Justice and
Treasury departments agreed to unfreeze the assets of Saleh Idris, the
owner of the Sudanese factory that was bombed by US cruise missiles
Aug. 20, 1998.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A14)
1999 May 7, The rebels postponed
peace talks indefinitely.
(SFC, 5/8/99, p.C14)
1999 May, A team of 10,000 Chinese
laborers under China Natural Petroleum Corp. completed a 1,000 mile oil
pipeline, 2 wells and a refinery after 18 months of work. In exchange
Sudan gave CNPC exclusive drilling rights to over 40,000 square miles
near the city of Bor.
(WSJ, 12/20/99, p.A22)
1999 Jul 12, It was reported that
heavy fighting had left 150,000 people without food after they fled
their homes.
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 14, The Sudanese
government banned aid flights to Western Upper Nile province where 2
factions allied to the government were fighting for control of oil
fields. This soon put 150,000 people to face starvation.
(SFC, 7/29/99, p.A16)
1999 Jul 27, The US eased
sanctions against Iran, Libya and Sudan to allow the sale of food,
medicine and medical equipment.
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A5)
1999 Aug 4, In Congo at least 518
people, mostly civilians, were killed when Sudanese planes, at the
request of Congo's government, bombed the rebel-held towns of Makanza
and Bogbonga. Sudan denied the charges and Congolese Pres. Kabila
denied responsibility.
(SFC, 8/5/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 30, Southern SPLA rebels
rejected an Egyptian-Libyan peace plan. The rebels held that conditions
put forward in negotiations were not included in the plan.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A13)
1999 cOct 31, 25 Sudanese fighters
were massacred by rival militiamen when they arrived for talks with
Paulino Matep at Benitu
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A18)
1999 Nov 22, Pres. Bashir issued
several decrees to promote national reconciliation.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Nov 25, Pres. Bashir met with
former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, head of the opposition Umma
Party.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B4)
1999 Nov 26, Sudan signed a peace
agreement with the opposition Umma Party in Djibouti to end the 16-year
old civil war.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A15)
1999 Nov 29, The rebel Sudan
People's Liberation Army rejected the Djibouti reconciliation between
the government and an exiled opposition group.
(SFC, 11/30/99, p.D3)
1999 Dec 7, An opposition group
summit began in Kampala, Uganda.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A19)
1999 Dec 12, Sudan's Pres. Omar
el-Bashir dissolved parliament, headed by Hassan Turabi, under a
3-month state of emergency. He cited internal and foreign threats.
Parliament had been due to enact new constitutional amendments that
would have taken away the president’s say in the appointment of
provincial governors.
(WSJ, 12/13/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/14/99, p.A12)(Econ,
6/28/03, p.48)
1999 Sudan created the Commission
for the Elimination of Abductions of Women and Children to help
eliminate slavery.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A15)
2000 Jan 24, Pres. Omar el-Bashir
reappointed an entirely new government. He fired 10 ministers,
disbanded 2 ministries and appointed 25 new state governors.
(SFC, 1/25/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 8, A government plane
bombed the rebel town of Kaouda in the Nuba Mountains and 13
students under age 14 were reported killed.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.C3)
2000 Feb 24, Some 160 aid workers
began leaving the southern region following a rebel ultimatum to comply
with new terms for aid deliveries or face expulsion. At least 11 int'l.
aid organizations refused demands for higher taxes and more control.
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 1, Government aircraft
bombed a hospital compound in rebel-held territory in Lui. 2 people
were killed and a dozen injured.
(SFC, 3/4/00, p.C1)
2000 May 6, Pres. Omar el-Bashir
dismissed Hassan Turabi as the secretary-general of the ruling National
Congress Party.
(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 13, In southern Sudan
rebels reported the killing of at least 92 pro-government fighters of
the Murahilin tribe after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/14/00, p.D2)
2000 Aug 23, A boat capsized on
the Blue Nile near Sinja and 35 people, mostly schoolchildren, died.
(SFC, 8/25/00, p.D8)
2000 Dec 8, In Garaffa, Sudan,
Abbas al-Baqer Abbas opened fire at the al-Sunna al-Mohammediya Mosque
and killed 20 people. 40 others were wounded and police killed Abbas, a
member of the Takfir wal Hijra militant Islamic group.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.A28)
2000 Dec 18, It was reported that
some 3.2 million people faced serious food and water shortages due to
the civil war and drought.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 29, Gen. Omar el-Bashir
was declared the winner in elections marred by an opposition boycott.
Civil war prevented voting in 3 of the 26 provinces.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A10)
2000 The “Black Book” document
began circulating among Sudanese rebels cataloguing how a handful of
people from 3 Arab tribes had grabbed most of the power in Sudan.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.40)
2001 Jan 17, In Sudan some 30,000
people fled rebel-held regions in the Numa Mountains.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A16)
2001 Jan, Rebels attacked an oil
drilling derrick owned by China’s Great Wall Drilling Co. and 3
soldiers were killed along with 15 rebels.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)
2001 Feb 20, Hassan Turabi,
Sudan’s top Islamic theologian and former parliamentary speaker, called
for the Sudanese to rise against the government of Omar el-Bashir. He
was arrested the next day.
(SFC, 2/23/01, p.A20)
2001 Mar 8, In southern Sudan
dozens of gunmen attacked and looted an aid agency. 4 workers were
killed and 2 were kidnapped.
(SFC, 3/13/01, p.A18)
2001 Apr 4, Col. Ibrahim
Shamsul-Din, deputy defense minister, and 13 other high ranking
military officers were killed as their Antonov plane crashed on takeoff
in Adaril.
(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A11)
2001 May 9, In southern Sudan a
Red Cross plane was shot and its co-pilot, Dane Ole Friis Eriksen, was
killed. The plane managed to land in Kenya.
(SFC, 5/10/01, p.C5)
2001 May 24, The government
planned to halt air strikes against rebels in the south May 25 in an
effort to reach a cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.D6)
2001 May 27, Sec. of State Colin
Powell stopped in Uganda and urged the government of Sudan to halt
bombing in southern towns and to stop interfering with the delivery of
emergency assistance to victims of drought and war.
(SFC, 5/28/01, p.B12)
2001 The US House voted (422-2) to
forbid foreign oil companies doing business in Sudan from selling
securities in the US.
(SFC, 6/14/01, p.C3)
2001 Aug 29, In Sudan the UN
reported that 3,480 child soldiers had been sent back to their southern
homes following 6 months of retraining. 4,000 more children were
expected to transition out of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army over
the next 18 months.
(SFC, 8/30/01, p.A12)
2001 Sep 6, Pres. Bush named John
Danforth as a special envoy to broker a peace agreement in Sudan’s
civil war.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.A14)
2001 Sep 26, Sudan began rounding
up extremists that have used the country as an operating base.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 28, The UN Security
Council lifted sanctions against Sudan after the US abstained from
voting.
(SFC, 9/29/01, p.A10)
2001 Nov 1, Pres. Bush extended
sanctions against Sudan for one year.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D5)
2002 Feb 20, In Sudan a government
helicopter gunship attacked civilians waiting for food at a UN site and
at least 17 people were killed. The US suspended peace efforts
following the attack.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A13)
2002 Feb, Sudan arrested 9
terrorists including Anas al-Liby, a senior al Qaeda operative.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A9)
2002 Mar, Uganda and the Sudanese
government in Khartoum reached an agreement to allow forces into
southern Sudan.
(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A11)
2002 Mar, Ugandan forces in
"Operation Iron Fist" pursued the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) into
southern Sudan, where the rebels killed at least 470 villagers.
(WSJ, 5/13/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A11)
2002 Apr 20, Sudanese government
forces began a major offensive against 3 southern provinces to oust the
rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Rebels said hundreds of thousands
of people were displaced.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A)
2002 Apr, Uganda and Sudan
restored diplomatic relations.
(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A11)
2002 May 22, A US-led int’l.
commission condemned the Sudanese government for allowing slavery to
flourish. Bondage to pay off debts still existed.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A15)
2002 May, William Luk opened a
bookshop in Rumbek, the capital of Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal province. It
was believed to be the only bookshop in southern Sudan.
(Econ, 1/31/04, p.48)
2002 Jun 6, Ugandan troops killed
67 rebels in a battle inside southern Sudan as part of a continuing
offensive to wipe out the 15-year old rebel group.
(AP, 6/6/02)
2002 Jun 27, In Khartoum, Sudan,
representatives of 57 Muslim nations pledged support for Palestinians
in a resolution that made no mention of President Bush's call for
Palestinians to elect a new leadership. In 21 months of violence, 1,739
people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 564 people on the
Israeli side.
(AP, 6/27/02)
2002 Jul 20, Sudan signed a peace
deal with southern rebels in Kenya.
(WSJ, 7/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 29, Sudanese
government-backed forces killed a foreign aid worker and abducted three
others in an oil-rich area of Sudan. A rebel leader said the government
killed some 1,000 civilians in a separate attack in the same region.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Jul 31, Sudanese rebels
claimed that government troops using bombers and helicopter gunships
attacked areas of a town in Sudan's oil-producing Western Upper Nile
Province.
(AP, 7/31/02)
2002 Aug 27, In Sudan more members
of the opposition Popular National Congress, including two former
government ministers, were arrested on suspicion of creating
"instability."
(AP, 8/28/02)
2002 Sep 2, The Sudanese
government suspended peace talks with southern rebels because of the
rebel takeover of Torit.
(AP, 9/2/02)
2002 Sep 27, In Sudan a thunder
storm killed 26 people in two separate accidents in Khartoum when a
Ferris wheel collapsed and a pleasure boat sank.
(AP, 9/28/02)
2002 Sep 29, A Saudi prince signed
deals worth $330 million to export Sudanese livestock and build a
five-star hotel in Sudan's capital.
(AP, 9/29/02)
2002 Oct 4, Regional mediators
said the Sudanese government and southern rebels have agreed to a
cessation of hostilities and the resumption of peace talks to end the
country's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 10/4/02)
2002 Oct 12, It was reported that
164,000 Eritrean refugees had begun returning home from camps in Sudan.
Some 60,000 had already returned since 2001.
(SFC, 10/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Oct 15, Sudan's government
signed an agreement with rebels to suspend fighting during talks to end
their 20-year-old war.
(AP, 10/15/02)
2002 Oct 20, Sudan's government
lifted a ban on relief flights to the southern Equatoria region after
it signed a cease-fire with southern rebels.
(AP, 10/20/02)
2002 Dec 18, In Sudan a bus
crashed and burst into flames after hitting a hole on an ill-maintained
highway known as "the road of death," killing 30 people.
(AP, 12/19/02)
2002 In Sudan the Machakos
Protocol outlined steps necessary to achieve peace.
(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A4)
2002 The Sudan Peace Act
threatened a series of US diplomatic actions against Sudan’s Islamist
regime if it did not end its civil war against Christian and animist
tribes in the south.
(WSJ, 5/26/04, p.A1)
2003 Feb, War flared up in Sudan’s
northwestern region of Darfur.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.42)
2003 Mar, Fighting broke out in
the Darfur region of western Sudan between Government forces and rebels
from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM).
(www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm)
2003 Apr, Sudan accused Eritrea of
supporting Sudanese rebels in the eastern part of Sudan.
(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/hornafrica.html#eri)
2003 Apr, Refugees begin arriving
in eastern Chad to escape the conflict. Large numbers of civilians
become internally displaced people (IDPs) within Darfur.
(www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm)
2003 Jul 8, A Sudanese airliner
crashed minutes after its captain reported technical problems following
takeoff, killing 116 people. The only survivor was a 2-year-old boy.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 11, In western Sudan
about 30 rebels and an undisclosed number of government troops were
killed during fighting near the border with Chad.
(AP, 7/13/03)
2003 Sep 4, The SLA and the
Sudanese government reach ceasefire agreement, but both sides soon
accuse the other of breaking it.
(www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm)
2003 Sep 17, Tom Eric Vraalsen,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs
in Sudan, announces the Greater Darfur Initiative, appealing for $23
million to help those most in need.
(www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm)
2003 Sep 25, Sudan's government
and main rebel group signed an agreement on security arrangements for a
six-year political transition in efforts to end their 20-year civil war.
(AP, 9/26/03)
2003 Sep 27, An illness called
"nodding disease" was reported among children in southern Sudan. It
caused victims to convulse with sharp nods of the head while eating or
exposed to unusually cold conditions.
(SFC, 9/27/03, p.A28)
2003 Sep, Refugee numbers in Chad
reach 65,000. UN agencies estimate at least 500,000 people in Darfur
need humanitarian aid.
(www.un.org/News/dh/dev/scripts/darfur_formatted.htm)
2003 Oct 13, In Sudan, Hassan
Turabi, hard-line Islamic leader and top opposition figure, was
pardoned after more than 2 years under house arrest as part of a
release of political prisoners.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 cOct 18, In western Sudan 9
commercial hauling workers were killed during clashes between warring
tribes. Recent fighting in Darfur had created more than 600,000
refugees.
(AP, 10/26/03)(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Oct 28, In western Sudan a
helicopter transporting troops crashed, killing 19 members of the armed
forces and a university student.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Nov 1, It was reported that
central Sudan was experiencing its worst grasshopper attack in 3
decades. At least 11 people died and more than 16,000 were hospitalized
with a respiratory illness doctors link to an annual locust invasion.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.A8)(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Dec 6, Sudan's vice president
and the leader of rebels fighting a 20-year civil war resumed their
talks on a comprehensive peace deal, boosted by a landmark visit by
rebels to the capital, Khartoum.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 21, The Sudan government
and rebels have moved a step closer to ending their 20-year civil war
after agreeing on how to divide the country's oil revenue.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 In Sudan a study indicated
that AIDS had infected about 1.6% of the population. By 2009 the number
was estimated to be approaching 3%.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.42)
2003-2006 The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) appeared in
the Darfur region. It consisted largely of members of the Zaghawa
tribe. Soon after the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) sprang up. In
response the government unleashed the janjaweed, an Arab militia with
ranks swollen by ex-criminals. By 2006 as many as 300,000 civilians
were killed in the Darfur region.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.22)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.40)(Econ,
5/13/06, p.14)
2003 Plumpy’nut, a peanut paste
developed in France in 1997, was 1st used on a large scale in Sudan’s
Darfur region to alleviate hunger.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.51)
2004 Jan 6, The Sudanese
government and southern rebels agreed on how to share the country's
wealth, including oil revenues, solving a key issue and taking a major
step toward ending their 20-year conflict.
(AP, 1/6/04)
2004 Jan 26, Sudanese planes
dropped bombs in western Sudan, sending hundreds of people fleeing
across the border into Chad where aid workers scrambled to provide them
food and shelter in the barren desert.
(AP, 1/27/04)
2004 Feb 11, Sudan
government-backed militias reportedly attacked five villages in
southern Darfur region, killing between 68 and 80 civilians. "Amnesty
International continued to receive details of horrifying attacks
against civilians in villages by government warplanes, soldiers and
government-aligned militia."
(AP, 2/18/04)
2004 Feb 17, UN agencies began
urgently airlifting relief supplies into eastern Chad and western Sudan
to help more than 600,000 Sudanese lacking food, water and medical
supplies because of fighting.
(AP, 2/17/04)
2004 Feb 27, Sudanese government
forces launched a series of raids on western villages, killing at least
70 civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee.
(AP, 2/28/04)
2004 Mar 19, A senior U.N.
official said that fighting in western Sudan has intensified in recent
weeks, accusing Arab militia of systematically attacking villages and
raping women.
(AP, 3/19/04)
2004 Mar 31, In Sudan security
police detained Hassan Turabi, the leading Islamic opposition leader, 3
days after members of his party were accused of conspiring to topple
the government.
(AP, 3/31/04)
2004 Apr 8, The Sudanese
government signed a cease-fire with rebels in the western Darfur region.
(SFC, 4/9/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 18, The UN reported that
at least 50,000 people have fled their homes in recent weeks because of
militia attacks and fighting between Sudanese government and rebel
forces in southern Sudan.
(AP, 4/18/04)
2004 Apr 21, Refugees in Chad
reported that Sudanese and Arab militias were conducting a "reign of
terror" to push blacks out of western Sudan.
(WSJ, 4/22/04, p.A1)
2004 May 4, The United States
walked out of a U.N. meeting to protest its decision minutes later to
give Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2004 May 22, Arab militiamen
killed at least 56 people in a raid in western Sudan, just days after
the government declared the troubled region was stable.
(AP, 5/24/04)
2004 May 24, The WHO confirmed an
outbreak of the deadly ebola virus has killed four people in south
Sudan.
(AFP, 5/24/04)
2004 May 25, Sudanese officials
said the government has reached an agreement with rebels on issues that
have stalled talks to end the 21-year-old war, clearing the way for a
comprehensive peace deal. The talks in Naivasha, 60 miles west of
Nairobi, do not involve insurgents fighting a 15-month rebellion in the
Darfur region of western Sudan.
(AP, 5/25/04)
2004 May 26, Sudanese VP Ali Osman
Taha and John Garang, SPLA southern rebel leader, signed protocols to
pave the way for a comprehensive deal.
(AP, 5/27/04)(Econ, 5/29/04, p.14)
2004 May 26, The U.N. Security
Council called for the immediate deployment of international monitors
to Sudan's western Darfur region and put new pressure on the country's
government to end a conflict there.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 May 27, Relief workers were
racing against the clock to keep hundreds of thousands of people from
dying in Sudan's western Darfur region, in what has become the biggest
humanitarian crisis of "our age."
(AP, 5/27/04)
2004 May 28, The Sudanese
government and rebels from Darfur agreed that the first international
observers of a fragile ceasefire would deploy there next week.
Villagers in west Sudan said Sudanese aircraft bombed their village and
killed at least 11 people.
(AP, 5/28/04)(Reuters, 5/29/04)
2004 Jun 8, Britain planned to
give an extra 15 million pounds (27 million dollars) in relief aid to
Sudan's crisis-hit Darfur region.
(AFP, 6/8/04)
2004 Jun 14, UN humanitarian chief
Jan Egeland criticized the Sudanese government for blocking aid
workers, food and equipment from reaching the Darfur region.
(AP, 6/14/04)
2004 Jun 17, A Chad military
official said Arab militias, known as Janjawids, fought Chadian troops
in Birak, a locality inside Chad about 10 miles (six kilometers) from
the border with western Sudan. 69 Janjawids militiamen were killed and
two taken prisoner in the fighting. He did not give figures for any
losses among Chadian troops.
(AP, 6/17/04)
2004 Jun 19, Sudanese President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered "complete mobilization" to disarm all
illegal armed groups in the western region of Darfur, including the
Arab militias who have been harassing African villagers.
(AP, 6/19/04)
2004 Jun 25-2004 Jun 27, Ugandan
rebels (LRA) in southern Sudan unleashed a two-day campaign of arson,
looting and murder, killing 100 villagers and forcing 15,000 others to
flee their homes.
(AP, 7/9/04)
2004 Jun 26, Rebels from Sudan's
remote Darfur demanded the imposition of a military no-fly zone, free
access for aid workers and war crimes trials for Arab militias who have
looted and burned throughout the region.
(AP, 6/26/04)
2004 Jun 27, Saudi Arabia
dispatched two planeloads of aid to Sudan's war-torn western region of
Darfur.
(AFP, 6/27/04)
2004 Jul 1, The United Nation's
World Food Program (WFP) began airlifting enriched food from the
Ethiopian capital to Sudan's western Darfur region, where it estimates
1.2 million people will need food aid every month until October. UN
Sec. Gen’l. Kofi Annan visited the area.
(AFP, 7/2/04)(WSJ, 7/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 3, Sudan pledged to
disarm Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 6, Sudan ordered an end
to restrictions on the movement of aid to the Darfur region.
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 7, It was reported that
fighting between Arab and African tribes has killed at least 70 people
and displaced thousands more this week in the Darfur region of western
Sudan.
(Reuters, 7/7/04)
2004 Jul 10, Sudan, under
international pressure to take action to end the humanitarian crisis in
Darfur, agreed with Chad to deploy a joint force along their troubled
border.
(AFP, 7/11/04)
2004 Jul 17, Sudanese rebels
walked out of peace talks, saying government representatives had
refused to meet their conditions for a new round of negotiations.
(AP, 7/17/04)
2004 Jul 23, Leaders from the 2
main rebel groups in Sudan's western Darfur region agreed to
participate in "substantive negotiations" for a political solution to
the humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 24, It was reported that
rebels fighting an 18-year insurgency in northern Uganda have killed at
least 42 civilians in southern Sudan in the past week.
(AP, 7/24/04)
2004 Jul 25, Central African
Republic President Francois Bozize wrapped up a two-day visit to Sudan
with a pledge to help his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir resolve
the crisis in the western Darfur region.
(AFP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 28, The Ugandan army
reportedly killed 120 rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters
during clashes in southern Sudan and narrowly missed capturing Joseph
Kony, the insurgents' leader.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Aug 1, The Sudanese cabinet
condemned the 30-day deadline for action on Darfur set by the U.N.
Security Council, but said it would implement a 90-day program agreed
earlier with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
(AP, 8/1/04)
2004 Aug
3, A Sudanese official and Arab tribal leader said rebels masquerading
as Arab militia have killed 28 Arab tribesman in attacks in western
Sudan over the last week.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug 2, The UN began
air-dropping food for refugees in Darfur, Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 13, The first elements of
a 300-strong African Union protection force left Kigali, Rwanda, for
Sudan's troubled region of Darfur, Sudan.
(AP, 8/14/04)
2004 Aug 19, It was reported that
the Darfur refugee count in western Sudan had reached 11.2 million.
(WSJ, 8/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 21, Sudan signed an
agreement to ensure the voluntary return of more than one million
people displaced by fighting in the Darfur region and said it was
giving Darfuris more say in local government.
(AP, 8/21/04)
2004 Aug 22, Sudan said it would
reduce paramilitary forces in Darfur by 30 percent to try to ease
tensions in the western region.
(AP, 8/22/04)
2004 Aug 24, The International
Committee of the Red Cross said it was mounting a major airlift of
relief supplies to Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 8/24/04)
2004 Aug 25, Sudan said it had
closed its embassy in Washington after being unable to find a bank that
would handle its financial matters.
(AP, 8/26/04)
2004 Aug 29, The UN Security
Council set this date for Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur, allow
help to reach the region and disarm the militias terrorizing the region.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.39)
2004 Aug 31, The Sudanese
government said rebels in Darfur had kidnapped 22 health workers in the
strife-torn region, following the abduction of eight Sudanese nationals
working for international aid groups.
(AFP, 8/31/04)
2004 Sep 1, Rebels released six
Sudanese aid workers in Darfur, four days after they went missing
during a trip to register refugees.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 1, A U.N. report called
for a quick increase in the international monitoring force in Sudan,
saying the government has not stopped attacks against civilians or
disarmed marauding militias.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 5, London’s Sunday Times
reported that John Knight, a millionaire British arms dealer, is
reportedly fuelling a bloody civil war in Sudan by arranging to supply
its government with tanks, rocket launchers and a cruise missile.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 10, Canada said it was
donating one million dollars (770,000 US) to United Nations efforts to
pacify strife-torn Darfur in western Sudan.
(AFP, 9/11/04)
2004 Sep 14, A UN World Health
report said 6-10 thousand people were dying from disease and violence
in Sudan’s Darfur region.
(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 15, A rebel faction said
peace talks with the Sudanese government and rebels from the troubled
Darfur region collapsed after three weeks without an accord.
(AP, 9/15/04)
2004 Sep 18, A divided UN Security
Council approved a resolution threatening oil sanctions against Sudan
unless the government reins in Arab militias blamed for a killing spree
in Darfur and ordered an investigation of whether the attacks
constitute genocide.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 18, Ugandan helicopter
gunships and ground troops attacked a rebel hideout in southern Sudan,
killing at least 25 insurgents and capturing seven others.
(AP, 9/19/04)
2004 Sep 24, The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees proposed autonomy for the troubled Darfur
region of Sudan. The government has resisted this but said it would be
willing to discuss it anew in an effort to end the violence that has
killed 50,000 people.
(CP, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 25, Sudanese authorities
accused an opposition party of plotting to kill more than three dozen
senior government officials and blow up key sites in the capital.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Sep 30, Sudan's foreign
minister pledged to allow more African troops and police to help end
the conflict in Darfur, responding to international demands for action
to protect civilians.
(AP, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 4, Iranian President
Mohammad Khatami arrived in Khartoum to start a three-day visit to
Sudan.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 5, A Russian cargo plane
crashed in war-ravaged southern Sudan, killing all four people onboard.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Oct 6, Sudan's U.N.
ambassador challenged the US to send troops to the Darfur region if it
really believes a genocide is taking place.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Oct 19, The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said villages throughout Sudan's
Darfur region face an "unprecedented food crisis," worse than the
threat of famine in recent decades.
(Reuters, 10/19/04)
2004 Oct 21, Negotiations between
the Sudanese government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an
umbrella organization for opposition groups from around Sudan, opened
in Cairo under the auspices of Egypt.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2004 Oct 22, The EU said its
member states will contribute $125 million to an African Union (AU)
force in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2004 Oct 26, In Nigeria a 2nd day
of peace talks on the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region broke off after
rebels called for more time to prepare proposals for a long-term
political resolution to the conflict.
(AP, 10/26/04)
2004 Oct 28, A contingent of 50
Nigerian soldiers arrived in Darfur, Sudan, aboard a US military plane,
the first of 3,000 extra African Union troops deployed to monitor a
shaky cease-fire.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2004 Oct 29, Sudanese rebel
leaders demanded that Islam be kept out of government in the war torn
region of Darfur.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2004 Oct 30, Rwandan troops
arrived in Sudan's remote Darfur region to join Nigerian soldiers
monitoring a shaky cease-fire in the country's troubled west.
(AP, 10/31/04)
2004 Nov 9, Sudan's government and
rebels agreed to sign fresh accords meant to stop hostilities in Darfur.
(AP, 11/9/04)
2004 Nov 10, Sudanese police
raided a camp in Darfur for the second time this month, destroying
makeshift homes, firing into the air and shouting at terrified
villagers.
(AP, 11/11/04)
2004 Nov 16, Darfur rebels from
the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) handed over 20 prisoners of war to the
African Union (AU).
(Reuters, 11/16/04)
2004 Nov 19, Rebel officials and
the Sudanese government committed themselves to ending the 21-year
civil war in southern Sudan before January, signing an agreement at a
special meeting of the UN Security Council in Kenya.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 22, Fighting near a
village in Sudan's crisis-plagued Darfur region killed at least 17
people, while helicopters rescued dozens of workers who fled into the
bush.
(AP, 11/22/04)
2004 Nov 25, The UN World Food
Program said it has suspended its operations in most of the Sudanese
state of North Darfur and relocated its staff to the capital due to
renewed clashes between rebels and government forces.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Nov 26, Sudan's
pro-government Janjaweed militia killed 16 people in a western village
in the troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 11/27/04)
2004 Nov 27, In Sudan armed
tribesmen attacked and looted four villages, killing at least 15
civilians near the Darfur town of Kossa Hill.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 Nov 29, The Sudanese
government declared the representatives of two British humanitarian
organizations persona non-grata and gave them 48 hours to leave the
country.
(AP, 11/29/04)
2004 Dec 13, In Nigeria the first
face-to-face working meeting between Sudan government and Darfur rebel
negotiators began. Cease-fire violations were on the rise in Sudan's
bloodied Darfur region and the fighting was "poisoning" peace talks.
(AP, 12/13/04)
2004 Dec 13, The UN restricted its
humanitarian operations in Sudan's troubled South Darfur area following
a shooting that killed two aid workers. Rebels said they would boycott
peace talks until the government stops a Darfur offensive.
(AP, 12/14/04)(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 16, The Sudanese
government agreed to stop a military offensive in Darfur region.
(AP, 12/16/04)
2004 Dec 18, The African Union
said Sudan had started withdrawing troops in Darfur ahead of an evening
deadline to end fighting there, but Khartoum said the pullout was
conditional on the rebels halting attacks.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 18, Sudan's government
kept up attacks on rebels in Darfur, defying a deadline set by African
Union mediators for an end to active hostilities.
(AP, 12/19/04)
2004 Dec 21, Sudan's government
and Darfur rebels agreed to formally end faltering talks. The African
Union urged both sides to stop fighting so peace efforts could resume
in January. Save the Children UK is pulling out of the Darfur region of
Sudan because four of its workers have been killed there.
(AP, 12/21/04)
2004 Dec 25, The Sudanese
government said it has readied 13 planes for fighting swarms of desert
locusts, poised to enter the country from Egypt.
(AP, 12/25/04)
2004 Dec 26, The Independent
reported that British PM Tony Blair has ordered the military to prepare
to deploy up to 3,000 soldiers to the conflict-torn Sudanese region of
Darfur.
(AP, 12/26/04)
2004 Dec 27, In western Sudan
rebel forces attacked the market town of Ghubaysh and the government
retaliated. The UN World Food Program suspended food convoys to the
Darfur region following the attacks.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2004 Dec 31, Sudanese government
and southern rebel officials signed landmark deals on how to implement
a series of agreements on ending a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2004 Dec, Under a proposed peace
deal rebel leader John Garang (SPLA) would become vice-president of a
federal Sudan and allow southerners to vote for independence in 6.5
years.
(Econ, 12/11/04, p.45)
2004 Dec, A 3-day attack by
Sudan’s government-sponsored militiamen left 32 people dead in the
village of Um Seifa.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.41)
2004 The documentary film “Lost
Boys of Sudan” was first broadcast on PBS. It follows two Sudanese
refugees, made homeless by civil war in 1987, on an extraordinary
journey from Africa to America.
(www.lostboysfilm.com/about.html)(SFC, 5/28/08, p.B5)
2004 In Sudan the Eastern Front
was set up as an alliance between 2 eastern tribal rebel groups, the
Rashaida tribe’s Free Lions and the Beja Congress. They were later
joined by the Darfuri’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Eastern
Front’s bases in Eritrea were clearly abetted by the government of
Eritrea.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.53)
2004 China invested almost $150
million in Sudan this year.
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.54)
2005 Jan 8, Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo flew to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to assess the
crisis there following talks with his Sudanese counterpart Omar
al-Beshir.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2005 Jan 9, Sudan's VP Ali Osman
Mohammed Taha and John Garang, the country's main rebel leader, signed
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to end Africa's longest-running
conflict. The treaty said: The 10 states in southern Sudan will be
secular, while the north will practice Islamic law; Former rebels will
hold 30 percent of national posts, the south will be autonomous; Oil
revenues from the south will be split 50-50 between the north and
south: The south will vote on independence in 2011; UN observers will
monitor a cease-fire and demobilization of troops.
(AP, 1/9/05)(AP, 1/10/05)(Econ, 12/3/05, p.24)
2005 Jan 11, Fighting raged on in
Sudan's western Darfur region where despite a peace accord ending a
separate conflict in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/12/05)
2005 Jan 16, The Sudanese
government and an alliance of opposition groups reached a tentative
agreement on Sudan's political future that builds on a peace accord
already signed with southern rebels.
(Reuters, 1/16/05)
2005 Jan 22, South Sudan leader
John Garang arrived in his southern bastion for the first time since a
peace accord ended Africa's longest-running civil war.
(Reuters, 1/22/05)
2005 Jan 26, The Sudanese air
force bombed villagers in South Darfur, observers from the African
Union reported, and an international aid organization said casualties
were inflicted. The UN said renewed fighting in Sudan's Darfur region
may have killed up to 105 civilians and displaced more than 9,000 last
week.
(AP, 1/26/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Sudan police
clashed with rioting tribesmen in the Red Sea coastal city of Port
Sudan, leaving at least 17 people dead and 16 injured. A tribal
representative claimed 23 people were dead and 100 others were wounded.
(AP, 1/29/05)(Econ, 10/1/05, p.43)
2005 Jan 31, A UN-appointed
commission accused the Sudanese government of gross, systematic human
rights violations in Darfur, but stopped short of labeling the violence
in the region as genocide.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Feb 3, In Sudan the pilot of
a cargo plane that was losing altitude steered away from a built-up
area and crashed in open space outside Khartoum, killing 7 crew members.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 3, The Kremlin said
President Vladimir Putin has signed a resolution that would have
Russian troops join a proposed U.N. peacekeeping operation in Sudan.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 4, A Swiss-based group
said Arab tribes in northern Sudan have freed 880 slaves during the
past two weeks and allowed them to returned to southern Sudan.
(AP, 2/4/05)
2005 Feb 9, Sudanese Aviation
Minister Ali Tamim Fartak said European aviation consortium Airbus
Industrie has cancelled the 45-million dollar debt owed to it by Sudan
Airways.
(AFP, 2/9/05)
2005 Feb 16, In Sudan 6 tribal
leaders in a southern Darfur area agreed to cease attacks against each
other and drop all claims for blood money for past assaults on
tribesmen.
(AP, 2/17/05)
2005 Feb 19, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi and Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak backed an African solution to
the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region during 2 rounds of talks in Cairo.
(AFP, 2/19/05)
2005 Feb 20, In Sudan Sheik
Abdul-Rahim al-Buraei (82), a top Sufi Islamic cleric who wrote
mystical poems and helped peace efforts, died.
(AP, 2/21/05)
2005 Feb 23, In Sudan an explosion
at an ammunition dump in the southern town of Juba killed 24 people.
(Reuters, 2/23/05)
2005 Feb 28, African Union (AU)
chairman, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, met Sudan's first vice
president Ali Taha over the bloody crisis in Darfur region.
(AFP, 2/28/05)
2005 Mar 4, Tribes from western
Sudan and the neighboring Central African Republic signed a peace
charter in a bid to end cross-border clashes.
(AFP, 3/4/05)
2005 Mar 9, Jan Egeland, UN
humanitarian chief, said far more people have died in Sudan's ravaged
Darfur region than the 70,000 reported since last year, and many of
those deaths were from preventable causes like pneumonia and diarrhea.
Egeland said some 180,000 people died in Darfur over the past 18 months
from hunger and disease.
(AP, 3/9/05)(Econ, 4/2/05, p.41)
2005 Mar 14, Experts said poachers
are killing between 6,000 and 12,000 elephants a year to supply illegal
ivory markets in Sudan to meet growing Chinese demand. Most of the
elephants are killed in southern Sudan, Congo and the Central African
Republic, with some ivory also coming from Kenya and Chad.
(AP, 3/14/05)
2005 Mar 23, France presented a
U.N. resolution allowing for the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes
suspects at the International Criminal Court, forcing the US to choose
between accepting a body it opposes or casting a politically damaging
veto.
(AP, 3/23/05)
2005 Mar 25, The UN Security
Council voted to send 10,700 peacekeepers to Sudan to monitor a peace
deal ending a 21-year-civil war.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 Mar 28, Sudanese authorities
said they had detained 14 people on suspicion of crimes, including rape
and murder, committed in the war-ravaged western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 3/28/05)
2005 Mar 29, The UN Security
Council ordered the Sudanese government to inform the UN before sending
any more weapons to Darfur.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.42)
2005 Mar 31, After weeks of often
bitter negotiations, the UN Security Council approved a resolution to
refer Sudanese war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court,
agreeing to major concessions demanded by United States.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 5, Tens of thousands of
Sudanese marched through the capital Khartoum against a UN resolution
referring war crime suspects to the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 4/5/05)
2005 Apr 5, The UN handed
prosecutors from the International Criminal Court thousands of
documents and a list of 51 people to be investigated for alleged war
crimes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/6/05)(Econ, 4/9/05, p.38)
2005 Apr 6, Security forces
stormed the headquarters of Sudan's main opposition party, arresting
scores of its members and top officials, apparently because of
celebrations marking an anti-government uprising nearly 20 years ago.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 8, The World Food Program
said food rations will be cut for more than one million Darfuris who
have fled fighting to makeshift camps in the region because of a
drastic shortage of funds.
(Reuters, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 12, Donors exceeded
Sudan's aid requests by pledging $4.5 billion to help it recover from
Africa's longest civil war amid criticism of Khartoum for failing to
halt atrocities in Darfur.
(Reuters, 4/12/05)
2005 Apr 28, The African Union
agreed to more than triple the size of its peacekeeping force in
Sudan's western Darfur region.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 Apr 30, Sudanese leaders
began work on drafting an interim constitution expected to seal a peace
deal with the south, but major opposition groups boycotted the opening
session.
(AFP, 4/30/05)
2005 Apr, Sudan and Uganda mounted
their 1st joint military operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA).
(Econ, 5/7/05, p.41)
2005 May 7, Canadian Press
reported that Canada will send up to 150 military personnel to Sudan to
help the African Union and a UN mission keep the peace.
(CP, 5/7/05)
2005 May 11, In Sudan's conflict
ridden Darfur region 2 main rebel groups signed a declaration pledging
to adhere to a cease-fire and help facilitate the flow of humanitarian
relief aid.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2005 May 13, The 2 main rebel
groups fighting in Sudan's Darfur region announced they were willing to
resume stalled peace talks, dropping their previous conditions for new
negotiations.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, Canada said it would
go ahead with plans to send military advisors to Sudan's Darfur region
despite Khartoum's insistence that it did not want the troops to enter
the country.
(Reuters, 5/13/05)
2005 May 17, Eritrean President
Issaias Afeworki met with Sudan Pres. Omar al-Beshir in Tripoli, Libya.
Beshir demanded that Eritrea refrain from harboring armed Sudanese
opposition and stops offering assistance to that opposition.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 18, In Sudan at least 17
people were killed in clashes between refugees and police in a squatter
area some 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Khartoum.
(AFP, 5/19/05)
2005 May 20, Illinois lawmakers
voted to have the state sell off about $1 billion worth of investments
in companies doing business with Sudan, part of a nationwide campaign
to protest genocide in the African nation.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 24, NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO will offer airlift, training
and other logistics support to African Union (AU) forces struggling to
end the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 26, International donors
pledged an additional $200 million to fund the African Union
peacekeeping operation in Sudan's western Darfur region during a
conference in Ethiopia to discuss the ongoing violence.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 28, In Sudan tens of
thousands of chanting refugees lined the muddy streets of Darfur's
largest camp to greet the U.N.'s Kofi Annan, who later listened as
women raped during the conflict told their stories.
(AP, 5/28/05)
2005 May 29, The World Association
of Newspapers' (WAN), meeting in Seoul, awarded veteran Sudanese
journalist Mahgoub Mohamed Salih its 2005 press freedom award.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 31, Sudan arrested a
second aid worker from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid agency
over a report on hundreds of rapes in the troubled Darfur region.
(Reuters, 5/31/05)
2005 Jun 2, In Sudan 5 people were
killed and 16 others injured when a passenger plane crashed shortly
after take-off from Khartoum and caught fire.
(AP, 6/2/05)
2005 Jun 6, The International
Criminal Court at the Hague formally announced the opening of a war
crimes investigation in Sudan's Darfur region after receiving a list of
51 potential suspects from UN.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 11, A new round of peace
talks on Sudan's Darfur region ran into early problems as Khartoum's
negotiators rejected Eritrean participation, stopping the first
behind-closed-doors plenary session from going ahead.
(Reuters, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 18, Sudan signed a
reconciliation deal with one of the country's largest opposition
groupings. The accord with the National Democratic Alliance is part of
the government's drive to clean up Sudan's multiple political and
military conflicts.
(AP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 19, Eastern Sudanese
rebels launched a major offensive near the country's main port,
capturing government troops in what Khartoum charged was an operation
mounted with the complicity of Eritrea.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 25, Rebels in Sudan's
remote east urged the world's media to come and see damage in civilian
areas that they say was caused by government bombing. They said the
bombing began in the Barka Valley on June 23 and resulted in a large
but unknown number of civilian casualties who filled hospitals in Port
Sudan and the town of Tokar.
(AFP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gov. Rod Blagojevich
signed a new state law that requires Illinois to divest about $1
billion worth of pension investments in companies that do business in
Sudan to protest the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country's
Darfur region.
(AP, 6/25/05)
2005 Jun 30, Sudan announced the
imminent end of a 16-year state of emergency across most of the giant
country and began releasing political prisoners, including the leading
Islamic opposition figure.
(AP, 6/30/05)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 5, Sudan and two Darfur
rebel groups signed a "declaration of principles" aimed at helping
bring peace to Darfur, but failed to reach a comprehensive deal to stop
the violence that has left tens of thousands dead.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 6, Sudan's National
Assembly unanimously passed a new constitution that steps away from
complete Islamic rule and paves the way for a Christian former rebel
leader to be inaugurated as first vice president later this week.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 8, John Garang, the rebel
leader in a two-decade civil war for southern autonomy, returned to
Sudan's capital for the first time in 22 years to take up his new
position as first vice president in the government he once fought.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Jul 9, In Sudan John Garang,
the former rebel leader who spent 21 years fighting Khartoum's
government, was sworn in as first vice president. Garang and Pres. Omar
el-Bashir signed into being Sudan's new constitution.
(AP, 7/9/05)(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 10, Sudan's new
presidency on Sunday lifted the state of emergency in Sudan, except in
the conflict-torn regions of Darfur and the east.
(Reuters, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 17, The Sudanese council
of ministers held its last meeting in Khartoum ahead of the formation
of a power-sharing cabinet that will include southern former rebels.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 19, In his first decrees
as Sudan's No. 2 leader, former rebel chief John Garang dissolved his
guerrilla movement and dismissed all government officials in 10
southern states.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 21, Sudanese security
officers roughed up members of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's
entourage; Rice demanded and got an apology.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2005 Jul 31, John Garang (60),
Sudan's vice president and former southern rebel leader, died when the
helicopter he was flying in crashed into a mountain in southern Sudan
in bad weather killing him and the other 13 people on board.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, Rioters burned cars
and threw stones in Sudan's capital following news of the death of VP
John Garanga in a helicopter crash. Garang's longtime deputy, Silva
Kiir, was quickly named to succeed him as head of his Sudan People's
Liberation Army and as president of south Sudan. 36 people died in
riots.
(AP, 8/1/05)(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Violent mobs surged
again into the streets of Sudan's capital sparked by the death of
Sudanese vice president and former southern rebel leader John Garang.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 3, Southern Sudanese
Arabs fled Juba after ethnic Africans angered by the death of their
popular rebel leader went on a two-day rampage, chasing Arabs in the
street and burning Arab shops and homes. At least 18 people were
killed. Northern and southern Sudanese leaders called for calm during a
third day of clashes in the capital that have killed at least 84 people
since the death of former southern rebel John Garang. Sudanese
President Omar al-Beshir announced the launch of a committee to probe
the death of vice president John Garang.
(AP-Reuters, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 4, The Sudanese Red
Crescent (SRC) said at least 130 people have been killed and around 350
injured after 3 days of violence following the death of former rebel
leader and First Vice President John Garang.
(Reuters, 8/4/05)
2005 Aug 9, In Sudan Lt. Gen.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, the commander of the Sudan People's Liberation
Army was inaugurated as Sudan's first vice president and president of
the new, autonomous southern government.
(AP, 8/9/05)
2005 Aug 11, Southern leader Salva
Kiir Mayardit was sworn in as Sudan's 1st vice president.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Aug 26, The UN food relief
agency said that it's battling to feed 90,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian
refugees displaced in eastern Sudan mainly due to a serious funding
shortfall.
(AP, 8/27/05)
2005 Sep 2, The African Union said
it is suspending peacekeeper deployments to Sudan's war-torn western
Darfur region for nearly three weeks due to lack of jet fuel and heavy
rains.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 19, Rebel groups said
militias backed by the Sudanese government killed 30 people over the
weekend in fresh attacks in Darfur, threatening new peace talks under
way in Nigeria. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) said 17 people were killed in Korbia in
northern Darfur Sep 17 and 13 died in attacks on Jabel Marra in the
west on Sep 18.
(Reuters, 9/20/05)
2005 Sep 20, Sudanese soldiers
inflicted "heavy casualties" in driving off rebels who overran a town
in the troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 23, The UN Security
Council extended the peacekeeping mission in Sudan by six months.
(AP, 9/23/05)
2005 Sep 25, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir met with King Abdullah in the Saudi city of Jeddah to
discuss cooperation between their countries and regional developments.
(AP, 9/25/05)
2005 Sep 28, Jan Egeland, UN
humanitarian chief, said escalating violence in the Sudanese region of
Darfur is threatening to halt aid work as increasing numbers of
international staff come under attack.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep 28, An unprecedented
attack on a displaced persons' camp in Sudan's embattled Darfur region
reportedly killed 29 people. UN reports said up to 300 armed Arab men
on horses and camels attacked the camp in northwest Darfur and burned
about 80 makeshift shelters.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 3, Sudan's government and
rebels from the war-ravaged Darfur region agreed to sit down for
face-to-face talks after a week of bickering that had put discussions
on hold.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, Sudan's government and
rebels from Darfur met for a 2nd day of talks in Nigeria. The visiting
Dutch PM urged all parties to reach a power-sharing deal by the end of
the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 7, The Sudanese
government agreed for the first time to allow Ugandan troops to pursue
members of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in all parts of
southern Sudan.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 8, In Sudan's Darfur
region 2 African Union peacekeeping soldiers from Nigeria and 2
civilian contractors were killed in an ambush.
(Reuters, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 9, Rebels freed 36
members of an African Union team, including an American monitor, who
were kidnapped earlier in the day in Sudan's western Darfur region.
(AP, 10/9/05)(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Egypt a sit-in by
hundreds of Sudanese refugees outside the offices of the UNHCR in the
Cairo entered its 14th day, even as the agency insisted it could not
meet their asylum demands. Some 14,400 Sudanese refugees were
registered in Egypt.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 16, Rebels and Sudanese
forces clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing a number of
civilians.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 19, The UN said fighting
and insecurity throughout Darfur is hindering food and relief aid to
tens of thousands of people and forcing more displaced Sudanese into
already crammed refugee camps.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 20, Sudan's government
and rebels ended a sixth round of talks on the crisis in the country's
western Darfur region, announcing no agreements but pledging to
reconvene in a month to push forward the slow-moving peace process.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 25, The UN said Sudanese
refugees released 15 aid workers they had detained on Oct 23 in a
crowded camp in the violent western Darfur region. Five Sudanese
nongovernment organization employees were still being held.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 31, UN envoy Jan Pronk
condemned the killing of 2 deminers contracted to the United Nations in
southern Sudan in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Nov 8, The US State
Department issued its 7th annual report to Congress on religious
freedom. It cited Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam as restricting religious freedom.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 9, An employee of the
Sudanese embassy in Iraq was shot dead by armed men who opened fire on
his car in the west of Baghdad.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 12, In Egypt hundreds of
Sudanese refugees staging a sit-in outside UN offices in Cairo began a
hunger strike to press their case for asylum.
(AFP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 16, A court set up by
Sudan to try war crimes in its violence-plagued Darfur region issued
its 1st sentences, condemning to death 2 soldiers in the torture
killing of a Sudanese citizen.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 19, Sudanese troops and
rebels clashed in the western Darfur region clashed and a rebel group
said 14 civilians and eight insurgents had been killed in the past 48
hours.
(Reuters, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 23, Sudan and Uganda said
they have renewed a deal letting Ugandan troops pursue leaders of the
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels deep into Sudanese territory.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 29, A Sudanese Darfur
rebel faction said it attacked a town in West Darfur state, killing 37
soldiers and police, to push for its inclusion in peace talks due to
open in the Nigerian capital Abuja later in the day.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Dec 2, In Nigeria rebel
leaders from the western Sudanese region of Darfur rejected an African
Union draft agreement on power-sharing between their forces and the
government in Khartoum, pushing the sides' seventh session of peace
talks close to stalemate.
(AFP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 17, A first group of
southern Sudanese refugees began their journey home after two decades
of living in a camp in Kenya.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 18, Chad blamed its
neighbor Sudan for a rebel raid on an eastern garrison and announced it
was exercising its right to pursue the attackers on Sudanese soil. A
spokesman said an early morning attack on Adre's garrison was mounted
by army deserters allied with a recently formed rebel group called the
Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL), which Chad accuses of being a
"militia used by the Sudanese government."
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 19, In Sudan some 500
camel and horse-riding assailants killed 20 civilians and burned their
huts in West Darfur.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 19, Chad's army said its
forces had killed about 300 rebels after they launched a failed
offensive on a border town in one of the worst attacks in an escalating
conflict. Chad's foreign minister said the troops then chased the
rebels into Sudan and destroyed their bases across the border.
(AP, 12/19/05)
2005 Dec 21, The UN and the
African Union condemned an attack on a village in Sudan’s western
Darfur region in which camel and horse-riding assailants killed 20
civilians and burned their huts.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 23, Two Arab satellite
television channels said that a Sudanese diplomat and five other men
had been kidnapped in Iraq. A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman
appealed for their release in an interview with Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 Dec 28, Sudan denied Chadian
accusations it was supporting dissidents trying to oust Pres. Idriss
Deby and said an African Union summit would go ahead in Khartoum in
January.
(Reuters, 12/28/05)
2005 Dec 30, Sudan said it will
close its embassy in Baghdad in an effort to win the release of six
kidnapped employees. Al-Qaida in Iraq threatened to kill the captives
if the diplomatic mission remained.
(AP, 12/30/05)
2005 Dec 30, Sudanese security
forces jailed without charge Zuheir Sirraj, a columnist for the
al-Sahafa daily paper. He was accused of slandering President Omar
Hassan al-Bashir in a move some parliamentarians called
unconstitutional.
(Reuters, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec 30, Egyptian police
turned water cannons on Sudanese war refugees and beat them with
sticks, clearing out a squatters camp in a city park. At least 10
people were killed.
(AP, 12/30/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Egypt several
Sudanese migrants injured when police violently cleared a ramshackle
camp died later from their wounds, raising the death toll from the
clash to 25. Sudanese refugees began trickling across the border to
Israel following the clashes.
(AP, 12/31/05)(Econ, 8/25/07, p.45)
2005 Sudan’s GDP grew at an 8%
rate. The IMF projected 13% growth for 2006.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.42)
2005 Some 200 Sudanese fleeing the
bloodshed in Darfur made their way to Israel, where they were placed
under low-security lockup.
(SFC, 6/9/06, p.A14)
2006 Jan 3, A Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman said Egypt will deport 654 Sudanese refugees who were
violently evicted from a protest camp in a Cairo park last week.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 4, Chad's President
Idriss Deby urged the UN to take control of Sudan's volatile Darfur
region because he said Khartoum was using the conflict there to
destabilize neighboring states.
(Reuters, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 11, Rebel sources said
Sudanese troops had entered Hamesh Koreb, a town in eastern Sudan, and
threatened to evict ex-southern rebels in a move that could threaten a
landmark year-old peace deal.
(AFP, 1/11/06)
2006 Jan 12, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said he wants the US and European countries to help form a
tough mobile force that would stop the bloodshed, rape and plunder in
Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 13, Sudan rejected a
suggestion by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the United States
and Europe help set up a possible mobile force in Darfur to supplement
African troops now on the ground.
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Jan 21, African nations were
split over Sudan's bid to head the African Union, a move which could
scuttle peace talks in the country's Darfur region and damage Africa's
efforts to improve its image abroad.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 22, Sudanese President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir urged the world to provide more equipment and
other support for cash-strapped African forces monitoring a tentative
truce in Sudan's violent Darfur region.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 22, Sudanese police
raided a human rights meeting, seized documents and laptops and briefly
detained participants on the eve of an African summit in the country.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 23, African leaders began
their annual summit in disarray, failing to resolve dissension over
Sudan's bid to chair the 53-state body. An AU official said 5 African
leaders have asked Sudan to withdraw its bid to head the African Union
because the appointment could sink Darfur peace talks and dent the
group's credibility.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 24, A government
spokesman said Sudan has withdrawn from the competition to lead the
African Union amid criticism of its human rights record. Diplomats said
the presidency would go to the Republic of Congo.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 27, The UN said killings,
rapes and indiscriminate attacks on civilians continue in Darfur,
accusing Sudanese soldiers of apparently coordinating with armed
militia in terrorizing the troubled region.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Feb 3, Some 55,000 Darfuris
fled Janjaweed attacks in Mershing, Sudan. Panic-stricken refugees
stampeded, trampling to death about 13 infants. Another 220 children
disappeared during the flight.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.46)(http://tinyurl.com/s4pj4)
2006 Feb 3, The UN Security
Council authorized planning for the expected UN takeover of
peacekeeping operations in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 6, Sudanese officials
said some seven people were killed in southern Sudan in recent clashes
between renegade armed militias and the south Sudan army, despite a
2005 peace deal to end Africa's longest civil war there.
(Reuters, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 8, In Libya the leaders
of Sudan and Chad signed a peace agreement to end increasing tension
over Sudan's Darfur region, pledging to normalize diplomatic relations
and deny refuge to each other's rebel groups. A communique issued by
Sudan, Chad and Libya, as well as Burkino Faso, Congo and the Central
African Republic, whose leaders attended the talks, said a committee of
African countries overseen by Libya would monitor the implementation of
the deal.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 11, In southern Sudan a
military transport plane blew a tire while landing at Aweil, swerved
off the runway and exploded, killing all 20 people on board.
(AP, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 14, Darfur rebels said
they had shot down a government helicopter and captured the only
surviving crew member, named as Captain Muawiya Zubeir.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 18, The WHO said a
cholera outbreak in south Sudan has claimed 52 lives with more than
2,000 cases of the deadly disease.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 22, A secret list
compiled for the UN Security council said Sudan's interior and defense
ministers and its national intelligence chief are among 17 people the
UN Security Council should punish for blocking peace in Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 25, In Rhode Island Brown
University announced it will stop investing in companies that do
business in Sudan because the country has been accused of genocide.
(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 28, A top UN envoy said
Sudan has begun a campaign to keep African Union troops in Darfur and
prevent a UN force from taking over efforts to restore peace there.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi
rejected the replacement of an AU force in the Sudanese region of
Darfur by UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 2/28/06)
2006 Mar 6, Leaders from the main
Darfur rebel group renounced Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, their party
president, saying he was acting unilaterally and endangering fragile
peace talks.
(Reuters, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 8, Western powers sought
to persuade Sudan to agree to a weak African Union peacekeeping force
being turned into a more robust UN mission to stop killing in the
Darfur region. Thousands of Sudanese protested in Khartoum against any
deployment of UN troops in Darfur.
(Reuters, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 10, The African Union
decided to extend its peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region for
six months to give itself time to negotiate a peace agreement, but it
promised to transfer control to the United Nations once that is
accomplished.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 11, In Sudan 5 members of
the main opposition group in eastern Sudan were arrested or detained,
in a move party officials said hindered any chance to start
long-delayed peace talks.
(Reuters, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 12, African Union
mediators presented cease-fire proposals for the conflict in Sudan's
Darfur region, asking rebels and the Sudanese government to work
together to end military activity against relief supply routes and
refugee camps.
(AP, 3/12/06)
2006 Mar 13, Jan Egeland, the UN
humanitarian chief, said increasing violence has left hundreds of
thousands of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region without food and facing
the prospect of widespread disease and death within weeks.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 13, Jan Egeland, the UN
humanitarian chief, said increasing violence has left hundreds of
thousands of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region without food and facing
the prospect of widespread disease and death within weeks.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 15, Gunmen attacked a
compound of the UN refugee agency in the town of Yei in southern Sudan,
killing one person and critically wounding two others.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 24, The UN Security
Council voted keep UN peacekeepers in Sudan to monitor an accord ending
a 21-year civil war and authorized planning for the expected extension
of the UN force's operations to Darfur.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Mar 28, In Sudan Arab League
Secretary-General Amr Moussa called on Arab leaders to move toward a
goal of "entering the nuclear club" and making use of atomic energy for
peaceful purposes. The absence of at least 10 heads of state, including
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah,
raised concerns of a lackluster summit.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Mar 28, In Sudan Arab leaders
promised to fund African soldiers in Darfur from October this year,
despite international pressure to allow the United Nations to take over
the mission.
(Reuters, 3/28/06)
2006 Apr 3, Jan Egeland, the
U.N.'s top humanitarian official in Sudan, said the government barred
him from visiting Darfur to prevent him seeing poor conditions there.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 5, Sudan said it would
allow UN Undersecretary Jan Egeland to visit Darfur.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 11, The UN Security
Council demanded that the Sudanese government and rebels reach
agreement by April 30 to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 12, Britain and the US
called for sanctions against four Sudanese who have blocked peace
efforts and violated human rights in the conflict-wracked Darfur region.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12-2006 Apr 13, Sudanese
Janjaweed militia with local Chadian recruits shot or hacked to death
118 villagers in eastern Chad in a bloody spillover of violence from
Sudan's Darfur region.
(Reuters, 5/25/06)
2006 Apr 14, Chad broke off
diplomatic relations with Sudan and threatened to expel 200,000
Sudanese refugees, blaming its neighbor for a rebel attack that killed
350 in the capital.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 15, Cambodian soldiers
departed to Sudan for a UN-backed landmine clearing operation, saying
they hoped they could use their experience recovering from civil war to
help the war-torn Sudanese.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 15-2006 Apr 17, In
southern Sudan 15 people including 11 civilians were killed in clashes
between militia fighters, straining a deal that ended the country's
north-south civil war.
(Reuters, 4/17/06)
2006 Apr 19, A UN spokesman said
Sudan has refused to grant visas for a UN military assessment mission
planning a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
(Reuters, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 21, Canada said 2 RCMP
members are heading to Sudan to assist the UN mission there in training
and supporting Sudanese police and, where possible, advising them on
policing methods.
(CP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 22, Hassan al-Turabi, a
Sudanese Islamist leader who once protected Al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin
Laden, was branded an apostate by the country's Muslim scholars for
taking a liberal stand on women's rights.
(AFP, 4/23/06)
2006 Apr 25, The UN Security
Council imposed sanctions on four men accused of atrocities in Sudan's
Darfur region, the first time it has moved to punish those responsible
for three years of conflict that has left 180,000 dead.
(AP, 4/25/06)
2006 Apr 28, The UN food agency
said it is cutting rations in half for about 3 million refugees in
Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region because of a shortage of money,
calling it "scandalous" that it has to stretch out supplies while it
pleads for funds.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 28, Five member of US
Congress were willingly arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy
in plastic handcuffs after protesting the Sudanese government's alleged
role in atrocities in the Darfur region.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 30, The Sudanese
government said it was ready to sign a draft peace deal with rebels
from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still had reservations
about the agreement.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 Apr 30, Some 100,000 rallied
in Washington DC, SF and other US cities to urge the Bush
administration to take decisive action to stop the genocide in Darfur.
(SFC, 5/1/06, p.A1)
2006 May 1, Under pressure from
the US rebels in Sudan's Darfur region agreed to continue negotiations
in Nigeria with the Sudanese government after rejecting a peace
proposal that would end a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of
people.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 5, Sudan's government and
the largest Darfur rebel group agreed to sign a peace plan, marking
major progress in an internationally backed effort to end the death and
destruction in western Sudan. Two other rebel factions rejected the
deal. The Abuja deal allocates an initial $30 million in compensation
from the government for more than 3 million Darfuris the United Nations
says were affected by the conflict. Opposition groups in the camps
dismissed the $10 per person payout as a joke.
(Reuters, 5/5/06)(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 May 8, Darfur refugees rioted
and forced the UN humanitarian chief to rush from their camp, then
later attacked African peacekeepers and killed a translator in a sign
of deep tensions in Sudan’s war torn region despite a fragile peace
deal. Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, attacked Labado town in South
Darfur, killing and injuring up to 50 people. The AU has a base in
Labado town.
(AP, 5/8/06)(Reuters, 5/20/06)
2006 May 13, In Sudan 6 people
were killed when demonstrators opposed to a peace deal the Sudanese
government signed with Darfur rebels clashed with police in the
war-torn region.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 May 16, Seven
African-American members of the US Congress were arrested at the
Embassy of Sudan, where they were protesting atrocities in that
country's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 16, The UN Security
Council passed a resolution pressing Sudan to cooperate with the United
Nations as it prepares take over peacekeeping in Darfur from an
underfunded African Union force.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 17, The UN said armed
militiamen had ignored a peace pact and attacked several villages
this week in Sudan's Darfur region, killing at least 11 people and
wounding many others.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 19, In Sudan's Darfur
region dozens were killed in a major attack by government-backed
militias on Shearia town, the latest in a wave of raids since a peace
deal was signed earlier this month.
(AP, 5/20/06)
2006 May 23, A high-level UN
delegation arrived in Sudan to press a reluctant government to accept a
large force of U.N. peacekeepers in the strife-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 24, The African Union
accepted a NATO offer to extend its assistance in Sudan's violent
Darfur region, stressing its presence there would remain small.
(Reuters, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, Sudan said it would
permit the UN to lay the groundwork for possible deployment of a
peacekeeping force in Darfur, but cautioned that the world body's role
would be smaller than some Security Council members want.
(AP, 5/25/06)
2006 May 26, In Sudan one African
Union soldier was killed and another critically wounded when heavily
armed men ambushed a patrol not far from their base in West Darfur.
(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 Jun 8, Breakaway factions
from two rebel groups that rejected last month's peace accord for
Sudan's violence-riven Darfur region signed declarations committing
themselves to the pact. Southern Sudanese leaders said they are
organizing peace talks with the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the
Ugandan government to try to end the brutal war in northern Uganda that
has spilled across the border into their own country.
(AP, 6/8/06)
2006 Jun 9, Tribal leaders
rejected the possibility of UN peacekeepers replacing African Union
forces in Darfur, with one chief threatening a "holy war" if
non-African troops come to the Sudanese region.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 11, Amnesty International
released a report saying China's sales of military vehicles and weapons
to Sudan, Nepal and Myanmar have aggravated conflicts and abetted
violence and repressive rule in those countries.
(AP, 6/11/06)
2006 Jun 14, The chief prosecutor
of the International Criminal Court said his office had documented
massacres with hundreds of victims in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region as
well as hundreds of rape cases.
(AFP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 15, Sudan said the
International Criminal Court did not have jurisdiction over crimes in
the violent Darfur region and no officials would be interrogated by the
court.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 15, The US Senate
allocated $60 million toward launching a UN peacekeeping mission in the
Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 6/15/06)
2006 Jun 19, The Sudanese
government and the Eastern Front under Eritrean mediation signed a
ceasefire agreement and pledged to work for a comprehensive settlement
of their dispute.
(AFP, 10/10/06)
2006 Jun 20, Sudanese state news
said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ruled out letting UN troops into
the Darfur region, saying he would not permit such a deployment as long
as he was in power.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 20, Chad accused Sudan of
cross-border attacks and urged the Security Council to meet over its
neighbor's alleged "aggression and destabilization."
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 25, Sudan suspended the
work of all UN missions in Darfur except for UNICEF and the World Food
Program, in response to the use of a UN helicopter to transport a rebel
leader.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jun 26, The Sudanese
government lifted its partial suspension of UN work in conflict-wracked
Darfur.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jul 3, Sudan's foreign
minister rejected calls by the top UN envoy in the country to make
additions to a peace deal for Darfur after widespread rejection of the
accord. A group of Sudanese rebels in more than 50 cars attacked the
town of Hamarat Sheikh in the Kordofan region of Darfur. At least a
dozen people were killed. In southern Sudan at least six people were
killed and 11 wounded when gunmen ambushed a German aid agency vehicle.
Witnesses said the attackers, some of whom were uniformed, were rebel
fighters with the LRA.
(Reuters, 7/3/06)(AP, 7/5/06)(AFP, 7/5/06)
2006 Jul 12, A UN official said
rebels in Darfur are fighting each other with the Sudanese military
apparently supporting one faction, sometimes with aircraft disguised as
relief planes.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 21, The UN refugee agency
said international aid operations in refugee camps in the Zalinge area
of Sudan's Darfur region have been suspended after three water workers
were killed by a mob.
(Reuters, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 24, In Sudan’s South
Darfur's vast Kalma camp, 17 women were raped by armed militiamen as
they went out to collect firewood.
(Reuters, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul 25, A Darfur rebel leader
was in Washington to meet President Bush, who is trying to convince
Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers to quell the increasing violence in
Sudan's remote west. President Bush pressed Darfur rebel leader Minni
Arcua Minnawi to help implement a deal aimed at ending the violence in
western Sudan.
(AP, 7/25/06)(Reuters, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 28, Sudanese government
forces and allied militias attacked bases of a new rebel alliance in
Darfur despite a ceasefire in the violent west.
(Reuters, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul, In Sudan 8 Sudanese aid
workers were killed this month in attacks across Darfur.
(SFC, 8/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Aug 7, The only rebel leader
to have signed onto a peace deal for Darfur was sworn in as a senior
aide to the Sudanese president as international aid groups said the
fighting in the war-torn region has intensified.
(AP, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 8, Chad and Sudan agreed
to reopen their borders and resume diplomatic relations that they
severed in a dispute four months ago.
(AP, 8/9/06)
2006 Aug 19, In Sudan 2 African
Union peacekeepers from Rwanda were killed and 3 were wounded when
their convoy was ambushed in the Darfur region.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 23, Sudan's ruling party
rejected a proposed Security Council resolution to transfer
peacekeeping duties in conflict-wracked Darfur to a UN force, saying it
would violate national sovereignty.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 26, A Sudanese court
charged reporter Paul Salopek (44) with espionage. He was detained by
pro-government forces in Darfur on Aug 6. Salopek was on freelance
assignment for National Geographic magazine.
(SSFC, 8/27/06, p.A19)
2006 Aug 30, In Sudan riot police
fired teargas and beat a journalist in central Khartoum on as
opposition party supporters gathered to demonstrate against a recent
rise in petrol and sugar prices.
(AP, 8/30/06)
2006 Aug 31, The UN Security
Council passed a resolution that would give the United Nations
authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan's government
gives its consent, which it has so far refused to do.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2006 Aug, In Khartoum, Sudan, the
$4 billion Alsunut residential and office project began to take shape
on 160 acres at the convergence of the Blue and White Niles. The
public-private partnership between the government and DAL Group
included 63 towers, with half their office space already sold to local
and foreign companies.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.42)
2006 Sep 1, Human rights activists
and African Union officials said the Sudanese government has launched a
major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 2, Sudan's president
ordered the release of an envoy of Slovenia's president who was
convicted of espionage in the war-torn region of Darfur and sentenced
to two years in prison. Tomo Kriznar, the Slovenian president's envoy
to Darfur, was arrested in July and convicted on Aug. 14 by a court in
the North Darfur capital of el-Fasher.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 4, Sudan said it would
allow African troops to remain in Darfur only under African Union
control and accused Washington of attempting "regime change" in
Khartoum by trying to bring in a UN force.
(Reuters, 9/4/06)
2006 Sep 6, Sudanese security
forces in Khartoum fired tear gas and beat demonstrators with sticks in
a crackdown on protests against price increases for basic goods, after
thwarting similar protests a week ago. In Khartoum the beheaded body of
Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the independent daily
Al-Wifaq, was recovered, a day after he was kidnapped by gunmen. He had
been accused of insulting Islam. A group claiming to be al-Qaida's
branch in Sudan said that it killed the chief editor. In 2007 ten
people were sentenced to death for the murder and beheading of Ahmed.
(Reuters, 9/6/06)(AP, 9/7/06)(AP, 9/13/06)(AP,
11/10/07)
2006 Sep 8, Sudan's President Omar
al-Bashir agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek and his
Chadian assistants after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 9, Sudan authorities
confiscated all copies of the independent al-Sudani newspaper, the
latest move in a resurgence of censorship since the beheading of a
journalist last week. Paul Salopek was released from a prison in the
war-torn Darfur region where he was held for more than a month on
espionage charges.
(Reuters, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 17, Peace activists
around the world staged a day of action to highlight the "forgotten
war" in Darfur where tens of thousands of people have been killed and
more than 2 million left homeless.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 19, Sudan's Pres. Omar
Hassan al-Bashir, on the sidelines of the UN General assembly, said his
country would never allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur and charged that
the West wanted to dismember his country in order to help Israel. He
agreed that the 7,000 AU peacekeepers could stay.
(Reuters, 9/19/06)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.51)
2006 Sep 20, The African Union
(AU) agreed to extend the mandate of its peacekeepers in Sudan's
troubled Darfur region for three months until December 31 after
receiving promises of financial and logistical support from the United
Nations and Arab states.
(AP, 9/20/06)
2006 Sep 25, A spokesman for the
AU said the African Union will add 4,000 troops to its extended Darfur
peacekeeping mission, bringing the number of police and soldiers in
western Sudan to 11,000. The UN got its first pledges of troops for a
proposed peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region at a meeting of 49
potential contributing nations.
(AP, 9/25/06)(Reuters, 9/25/06)
2006 Sep 25, California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two bills to bar the state's massive
pension funds from investing in companies in Sudan and to indemnify the
University of California system from liability from divesting its
investments in the country.
(Reuters, 9/25/06)
2006 Sep 26, The UN and Sudan
discussed the deployment of UN military advisers to reinforce African
Union peacekeepers in Darfur, in a possible compromise in their
standoff over the war-torn region.
(Reuters, 9/26/06)
2006 Sep 29, The UN Security
Council allowed UN experts, who have recommended sanctions on top
Sudanese officials, to continue monitoring atrocities and arms embargo
violations in Darfur.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Oct 4, Sources said fresh
inter-rebel fighting in Sudan has forced 10,000 Darfuris to seek refuge
near a camp of African Union forces monitoring a widely-ignored truce.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2006 Oct 5, The US called
emergency UN Security Council consultations after Sudan warned nations
considering troops for Darfur that their action was a "prelude to an
invasion."
(AP, 10/5/06)
2006 Oct 7, Sudanese soldiers
crossed the border into eastern Chad to fight a group of Darfur rebels,
leaving more than 300 people injured.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2006 Oct 10, The Sudanese
government and eastern rebels signed a power sharing agreement in the
Eritrean capital Asmara after months of peace talks. Under Eritrean
mediation, Khartoum and the Eastern Front signed a ceasefire agreement
on June 19 and pledged to work for a comprehensive settlement of their
dispute.
(AFP, 10/10/06)
2006 Oct 10, The World Food
Program (WFP) said nearly a quarter of a million people in Sudan's
Darfur region cannot access U.N. food rations due to fighting.
(AP, 10/10/06)
2006 Oct 13, President Bush signed
a law imposing sanctions against people responsible for genocide and
war crimes in Sudan. He also signed a ports security bill that
contained language barring the electronic settling of gambling debts.
(Reuters, 10/13/06)(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 14, The Sudanese
government signed a peace deal with a group of rebels from eastern
Sudan, ending a deadly strife that has been overshadowed by the
conflict in the country's western Darfur region.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 16, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi held talks on how to
resolve the Darfur crisis in Sudan without intervention from outside
Africa.
(AFP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 17, A former Janjaweed
fighter in London recounted to the BBC how the Sudanese government has
actively supported the militia that is accused of genocide against
non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur.
(AFP, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 18, Local and UN
officials said Sudanese Janjaweed militia and Chadian rebels have
attacked at least 10 villages in south-east Chad in the past fortnight,
killing over 100 people and displacing more than 3,000. In southern
Sudan unknown gunmen killed 38 civilians in at least five attacks. At
least 50 soldiers from the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army
drowned in southern Sudan after two steamboats collided on the Nile.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)(Reuters, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 20, The UN refugee agency
said it had received reports of at least 38 civilians killed in attacks
in southern Sudan and was suspending its operation helping Sudanese
refugees return from neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/20/06)
2006 Oct 21, Uganda's president
traveled to southern Sudan to bolster faltering talks between his
government and rebels aimed at ending a brutal 19-year conflict in
northern Uganda.
(AP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 22, The Sudanese
government ordered the chief UN envoy to leave the country within three
days after he wrote that the Sudanese army had suffered serious losses
in fighting with rebels in northern Darfur.
(AP, 10/22/06)
2006 Oct 26, Mo Ibrahim, a
self-made Sudanese millionaire, offered African politicians an annual
prize worth $5 million if they avoid being seduced by power and
corruption. The prize would be presented to former leaders who had
demonstrated excellence in government. Ibrahim founded Celtel
International, an African cell phone network. He sold Celtel for $3.3
billion in 2005.
(Reuters, 10/26/06)(AP, 10/27/06)
2006 Oct 28, Chad accused Sudan's
air force of bombarding four towns along its eastern frontier and said
its armed forces were ready to repel further aggression.
(Reuters, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 31, Attacks in West
Darfur, Sudan, killed at least 63 people, half of them children. Some
300 to 500 Arab militiamen on horseback raided at least eight villages
as well as the Hajlija IDP camp.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 1, US President George W.
Bush renewed US economic sanctions on Sudan for one year and left open
the door to imposing new ones linked to the violence in Darfur.
(AFP, 11/1/06)
2006 Nov 3, Sudanese President
Omar al-Bashir said that his government will not relent on its
rejection of UN peacekeeping troops for Darfur. Rebels accused Khartoum
of remobilizing Arab militia after suffering two military defeats on
the Sudan-Chad border.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 10, A Norwegian refugee
group said it is closing down its humanitarian operations for nearly
300,000 people in Darfur because it is impossible to work in the
Sudanese region.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 11, Sudanese armed forces
deliberately attacked civilians in western Darfur killing 11, including
a woman burnt to death in her home. African Union sources later claimed
30 people were killed and 40 injured, blaming Khartoum-backed Janjaweed
militia.
(Reuters, 11/13/06)(AFP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 13, Senegal’s President
Abdoulaye Wade received a letter from Sudan President Omar al-Bashir
that accepted some sort of UN intervention.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 13, The UN said it has
pledged about $77 million in personnel and equipment to help the
overwhelmed African Union force in Darfur as Sudan blocks the world
body from sending its own peacekeepers to the war-torn region.
(AP, 11/13/06)
2006 Nov 16, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan worked with key African, Arab, European leaders in Ethiopia
to break the deadlock over worsening violence in Sudan's Darfur region.
Leaders agreed in principle to a joint African Union-United Nations
peacekeeping force for Darfur. UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland
arrived in Darfur to find security so bad he could not visit the camps
outside el-Geneina town housing tens of thousands of displaced Darfuris.
(Reuters, 11/16/06)(AP, 11/16/06)(AP, 11/16/07)
2006 Nov 17, Sudan reversed its
long-standing opposition to allowing UN peacekeepers within its
borders, agreeing in principle to a plan that will permit an
international force to bolster African troops in Darfur, one of the
world's bloodiest conflict zones. A former southern rebel soldier
killed 5 policemen in the Jabal Awliaa area, 30 kilometers (19 miles)
south of Khartoum.
(AP, 11/17/06)(Reuters, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 17, UN aid bodies said
torrential rains and floods have hit up to 1.8 million people in the
Horn of Africa, driving tens of thousands from their homes and
threatening to trigger epidemics. Torrential rains have pounded the
Horn of Africa this month, bringing misery to large parts of Kenya,
Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 18, Sudanese Foreign
Minister Lam Akol told reporters "We did not agree to the deployment of
hybrid United Nations-African Union forces in Darfur, as was declared
by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan after the Addis Ababa consultative
meeting." He said the Sudanese delegation agreed only on UN technical
units to back up the AU forces in Darfur.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 19, Darfur rebels said
the Sudanese government has launched a major offensive in North Darfur
despite an agreement to hold new talks among all parties to the
conflict.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Nov 20, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Bashir's government hailed a new agreement with the UN over
peacekeepers in Darfur as a diplomatic breakthrough, but said serious
differences remain over the force's makeup and command.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 21, Arab and African
leaders in Libya agreed to work together to end the crisis in the
Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 22, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir told Britain and the UN that he still rejects the
deployment of UN troops in war-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, In Sudan 6 policemen
were killed and 7 wounded in an attack by unidentified rebels on a
police camp in South Darfur state.
(AFP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 26, In Sudan the National
Redemption Front said its fighters had seized the Abu Jabra oil field
on the edge of South Darfur and Southern Kordofan. Sudanese military
said its forces had repelled the attack and were in full control of the
field.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 27, In Sudan fighting
began in the southern town of Malakal and escalated into full trench
warfare between the northern Sudanese Armed Forces and the SPLA.
Hundreds of people may have been killed in the heaviest fighting
between Sudan's former north-south foes since they signed a peace deal
last year.
(Reuters, 11/30/06)
2006 Nov 30, Sudan's president
rejected a proposal to send UN peacekeepers to Darfur to boost a
beleaguered 7,000-member African Union force, crushing hopes for a
quick solution to the violence spreading across central Africa.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 2, A UN official said
days of fighting between former rebels and government forces killed
more than 150 people and wounded at least 400 in a southern Sudanese
town.
(AP, 12/2/06)
2006 Dec 4, In Sudan militias
entered El Fasher, the main town in the Darfur region and started
looting the market. Militias there fought members of a former rebel
group in clashes which the rebels said left up to seven people dead.
(AP, 12/4/06)(Reuters, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 6, Sudanese newspapers
reported that Salva Kiir, Sudan's first vice president, demanded the
arrest of two pro-Khartoum generals involved in deadly clashes in the
southern town of Malakal last month. Pro-government janjaweed
militiamen in the Darfur region killed 2 students in El Fasher, a day
after another student was killed. Rebel groups massed nearby in
preparation for a possible attack against the forces.
(AP, 12/6/06)(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 8, President George W.
Bush and visiting South African President Thabo Mbeki pressed for
urgent deployment of international peacekeepers in violence-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 12/8/06)
2006 Dec 9, In Sudan militiamen on
horseback ambushed a refugee convoy in Sirba in western Darfur, killing
22 civilians. The governor of West Darfur said the attack was carried
out by rebel groups who refused to sign the May peace agreement.
(AFP, 12/10/06)
2006 Dec 11, Official sources said
the Sudanese government has approved a budget of 11.7 billion dollars
for 2007 and is targeting a growth rate of 10%. Rebels in Sudan's
western region of Darfur said a government warplane killed eight
civilians, mostly children, in a northern village.
(AP, 12/11/06)(Reuters, 12/12/06)
2006 Dec 15, In Kenya 11 African
heads of state attending the 2nd International Conference on the Great
Lakes Region signed a landmark $2 billion (1.5-billion-euro) security
and development pact to forestall fresh violence in the area.
(AFP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 15, The US and the EU
stepped up calls for Sudan to let international troops in to support
African Union forces in Darfur amid growing talk of sanctions on
Khartoum.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 16, The African Union
(AU) said the situation in Sudan's troubled Darfur region was worsening
due to the return of re-armed Janjaweed militia and Khartoum's resolve
to use military force.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 18, Sudan's justice
minister said he was ready to cooperate with a UN fact-finding team due
to investigate human rights abuses in war-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 12/18/06)
2006 Dec 19, The UN evacuated 71
aid workers from the largest refugee camp in Darfur after gunmen looted
their compounds, leaving some 130,000 refugees virtually without
humanitarian help.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 20, The Sudanese army
killed 200 rebels while repelling an attack in Darfur, the deadliest
single military operation reported in the war-torn region since
fighting started there four years ago. The army also said that 20 of
its troops were wounded during the fighting.
(AFP, 12/21/06)
2006 Dec 21-2006 Dec 22, Fighting
between Darfur rebels and government forces near the town of Kutum
killed 7 people and insurgents shot down 2 army helicopters in the area.
(Reuters, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec 26, President Omar
al-Bashir said in the letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that
Sudan is ready to immediately implement two recent agreements endorsing
a three-step UN plan to strengthen the beleaguered 7,000-strong African
Union force in Darfur.
(AP, 12/27/06)
2006 Dec 29, Sudanese military
planes bombed two rebel positions in the north of Darfur just days
after the head of the African Union's peacekeeping force visited the
area to urge the rebels to join a cease-fire agreement. The African
Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan called for a halt to such attacks.
(AP, 12/31/06)
2006 Dave Eggers authored “What Is
the What: The Autobiography of Achak Deng.” Deng, a Sudanese “lost
boy,” managed to escape to Ethiopia and work his way to Kenya and
ultimately America in 2001. Eggers’ novel is based on interviews with
Deng.
(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.M1)
2006 The largest American embassy
in Africa was under construction in Khartoum.
(Econ, 12/9/06, p.29)
2006 The population of southern
Sudan was about 12 million. Over 40% of its oil money was earmarked for
military expenditure.
(Econ, 12/9/06, p.28)
2007 Jan 2, A UN official said the
UN will investigate a report of allegations of sexual abuse and child
rape by peacekeepers operating in southern Sudan.
(AP, 1/2/07)
2007 Jan 4, Sudan described the
alleged sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in south Sudan as
"outrageous" and said it would launch its own investigation into the
affair.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 5, Sudanese aircraft
carried out strikes on Bamina and Gadir in North Darfur state near the
border with Chad, endangering a fragile ceasefire.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 10, Sudan and rebel
groups, prodded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, agreed on a
60-day ceasefire, plus diplomatic efforts by the UN and African Union,
to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, A Darfur rebel group
denied that it agreed to a cease-fire with the Sudanese government
during a meeting this week with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 16, Rebels said Sudanese
government planes bombed Darfur rebel areas despite a declared truce.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 21, Darfur rebels accused
the Sudanese government of bombing its areas for two days, killing at
least 17 civilians, in an attempt to delay a conference of rebel
leaders.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 22, The EU threatened
Sudan with sanctions if it refused to allow UN peacekeepers into
war-torn Darfur, but rights groups and analysts said the warning was
not enough to stop the killings.
(AP, 1/22/07)
2007 Jan 24, A hijacker seized a
Sudanese passenger plane carrying 103 people and forced the pilot to
fly to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, where he surrendered. The gunman
wanted the plane to be flown to Britain but when told there was
insufficient fuel agreed to go to the capital of neighbouring Chad. He
said he wanted to draw attention to the Darfur conflict.
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 26, Darfur rebels said
they would refuse peace talks and would fight African Union
peacekeepers on the ground if Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
became chairman of the pan-African body. In southern Sudan gunmen
killed an Indian peacekeeper and wounded 2 others.
(Reuters, 1/26/07)(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 26, Officials said Jody
Williams, the US anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner,
will lead a team of United Nations investigators to probe killings,
rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur.
(AP, 1/26/07)
2007 Jan 30, In Sweden former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad
Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to protect human
rights.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 1, Radhika Coomaraswamy,
the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and
Armed Conflict, said child soldiers are increasingly being used in the
war-torn region of Darfur, even as their use is on the decline
elsewhere in Sudan.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 2, Chinese President Hu
Jintao offered Sudan assistance for the peaceful resolution of the
Darfur conflict but ignored Western pressure to make future aid
conditional on the progress made. Jintao agreed on closer economic
cooperation with Sudan after sealing talks with a series of trade
agreements. Jintao told Sudan's leader he must give the United Nations
a bigger role in trying to resolve the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Washington Post
reported that President George W. Bush has approved plans for the US
Treasury Department to block US commercial bank transactions connected
to Sudan's government, including those involving oil revenue.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 15, A summit of African
leaders opened in Cannes on the French Riviera. The crisis in Darfur
and violence in Guinea overshadowed the summit, as well as perennial
issues of poverty, development and AIDS. France won agreement from
three involved African nations (Sudan, Chad and Central African
Republic) that they would not support armed rebel movements on each
other's territories.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, A US federal judge
ordered a trial for a suit seeking $105 million from Sudan for aid to
al-Qaeda in the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 in 2000.
(WSJ, 2/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 16, In Sudan heavy
fighting took place between the Targem and Rezegat Maharia tribes in
South Darfur state. Unconfirmed reports suggested that between 70 to
100 tribesmen were killed and 14 injured.
(Reuters, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 21, At a regional meeting
in Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad said they agreed to redouble
efforts to end violence spilling over their border from Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 26, Sudan rejected the
legitimacy of the International Criminal Court in pressing charges over
the conflict in Darfur, still ravaged by war and famine four years
after the violence erupted.
(AP, 2/26/07)
2007 Feb 27, The International
Criminal Court's prosecutor in Netherlands named Ahmed Muhammed Harun,
a former Sudanese junior minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahmann
(aka Ali Kushayb), a janjaweed leader, as suspects in war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Sudan rejected the
legitimacy of the ICC, insisting it would try Darfur war criminals.
(Reuters, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.55)
2007 Feb 28, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with
his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Sudan gunmen killed
two African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded a third in the
western Darfur region.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 6, Sudan said it will try
three Sudanese for crimes committed in Darfur, including a member of
the country's security forces who is being sought by an international
war crimes court.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 14, A US judge in
Virginia ruled that Sudan should pay damages to the families of 17
sailors killed in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.
(Reuters, 3/14/07)
2007 Mar 19, Sudan's Pres. Bashir
denied his government was involved in widespread human rights abuses in
Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed in what the
US says is the first genocide of this century. Amnesty International
said 2 Sudanese women have been sentenced to death by stoning for
adultery after a trial in which they had no lawyer and which used
Arabic, not their first language. Sadia Idriss Fadul was sentenced on
Feb 13 and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum on March 6 and their sentences could
be carried out at any time.
(Reuters, 3/19/07)(Reuters, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 22, Sudan temporarily
suspended 52 non-governmental organizations working in Darfur as the
new UN humanitarian chief began his first visit to the country, hoping
to win aid groups better access to the region.
(AP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 24, In Sudan 11 people
were killed including 2 policemen and eight members of Darfur's former
rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin
city. Abdel Shafee Jomaa Arabi, a senior rebel commander, was killed in
an ambush in Darfur.
(AFP, 3/24/07)(AFP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 25, European leaders
called for new international sanctions on Sudan over its treatment of
civilians in Darfur, where the new UN humanitarian chief warned that
humanitarian efforts were at risk of collapse.
(AP, 3/25/07)
2007 Mar 28, Sudan and the UN
signed an agreement to guarantee humanitarian access to refugees in
Darfur. UN chief Ban Ki-moon tried to persuade President Omar al-Bashir
to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur, hours after al-Bashir flatly
rejected the deployment.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities arrested
a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane while
flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 31, In western Sudan at
least 62 people were killed and 21 wounded in an attack on an Arab
tribe in the Darfur region.
(AFP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, Unidentified gunmen
killed five African Union soldiers guarding a "water point" near the
Sudan’s border with Chad in the deadliest attack on the peacekeepers
since their deployment in 2004. The attackers fled the scene after AU
troops killed three of them in an exchange of fire.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, In Sudan 53 people
were killed in a gruesome pair of minibus accidents north of Khartoum.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 6, A Chinese delegation
arrived in Sudan's troubled Darfur region for a 4-day visit. They met
officials and visited camps for the internally displaced.
(AP, 4/8/07)
2007 Apr 9, A Sudanese army
spokesman said 17 Sudanese soldiers were killed in clashes with Chadian
troops inside Sudanese territory.
(Reuters, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 9, China urged Sudan to
be more flexible on a plan put forward by former UN chief Kofi Annan to
bolster peacekeeping operations in the war-torn western region of
Darfur.
(AFP, 4/9/07)
2007 Apr 10, South African
President Thabo Mbeki arrived in Khartoum to join the international
push for UN peacekeepers in Darfur, amid fears of a regional spillover
after clashes between Sudan and Chad. Officials said the UN, the
African Union and the Sudanese government have reached agreement to
beef up the African force in Sudan's violence-wracked Darfur region
with UN troops, police and equipment.
(AP, 4/10/07)
2007 Apr 11, At least 40 civilians
were killed and 25 wounded in an attack believed to have be carried out
by the Janjaweed militia in the war-torn Darfur region.
(AFP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 13, A landmine killed
nine Sudanese army soldiers and wounded 11 on Sudan's eastern border
with Ethiopia.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 14, In Sudan unidentified
gunmen killed a Ghanaian military officer in the African Union's
peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and hijacked his car within
yards of the AU mission's headquarters. The dead officer was the ninth
peacekeeper slain this month, raising to 18 the number of AU soldiers
killed since the mission deployed in 2004.
(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, The official Saudi
news agency reported that Sudan has signed a joint agreement with the
UN and the African Union that defines their respective roles in Darfur.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Foreign Minister Lam
Akol said Sudan will accept UN attack helicopters in its Darfur region
as part of a support package for the African Union force struggling to
maintain peace in its vast west. US Deputy Secretary of State John
Negroponte said the janjaweed militia, accused of widespread atrocities
in Darfur, is actively supported by the Sudanese government.
(Reuters, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 19, A Sudanese rebel
group said government aircraft destroyed a village in northern Darfur
in an air strike.
(Reuters, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, British aerospace
engine maker Rolls-Royce said that it will withdraw from Sudan, citing
"increasing international humanitarian concerns" in the
violence-scarred region of Darfur.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 21, Eritrean President
Issaias Afeworki arrived in Sudan determined to kick-start talks to end
the violence in Darfur.
(AFP, 4/21/07)
2007 Apr 23, A top Sudanese
government official offered a two-month halt in military operations in
strife-torn Darfur to allow for rebel groups to join the peace process.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 25, The UN food agency
said Sudanese authorities were holding up to 100,000 tons of sorghum
meant for Darfur, alleging that it is genetically modified. Laboratory
tests had shown it was not genetically modified.
(Reuters, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 28, Actors and musicians
including Elton John, George Clooney, Bob Geldof and Mick Jagger called
on world leaders to take "decisive action" over atrocities in Darfur.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi urged African, Arab and Western diplomats
to work with Sudanese rebels to find an immediate solution to the
crisis in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 4/28/07)
2007 Apr 29, Protests took place
around the world to demand that world leaders act to prevent further
bloodshed in Darfur on the fourth anniversary of the conflict's start.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr 30, The Sudanese armed
forces vowed to "crush" a coalition of rebel groups in Darfur for
killing an officer whose helicopter had landed in north Darfur after a
technical failure.
(Reuters, 4/30/07)
2007 May 2, The International
Criminal Court in the Hague said it has issued arrest warrants
for the Sudanese government's humanitarian affairs minister and a
janjaweed militia leader suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 3, African neighbors
Sudan and Chad signed a Saudi-brokered reconciliation deal in Saudi
Arabia, requiring both sides to cooperate with the United Nations to
stabilize Darfur and the adjacent region in Chad.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 5, In southern Sudan an
attack by one tribe left 54 members of another tribe dead, mainly women.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 May 8, Amnesty Int’l. said in
a report that China and Russia are supplying arms to Sudan that are
being used to fuel the violence in the Darfur region in violation of a
UN arms embargo. China and Russia quickly rejected the report and
Sudan's government said it was "not justified." China confirmed it
would send military engineers for a planned UN peacekeeping force to
Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 10, China, criticized for
not pushing its close ally Sudan to resolve the Darfur crisis, said
that it had appointed a special representative on African affairs to
focus on the issue.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 14, EU foreign ministers
gave the green light for a 40-million euro aid package to the African
Union peacekeeping force in the troubled Sudanese province of Darfur.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 18, The UN accused Sudan
government forces of direct involvement in recent machine-gunning of
Darfur villages that left at least 100 dead.
(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.A1)
2007 May 21, US Democratic
presidential hopeful Joseph Biden called for US troops to help quell
the violence in Sudan's Darfur region, drawing a strong rebuke from
Sudan's UN envoy.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 26, Egyptian Lieutenant
Colonel Ihab Ahmed, a UN peacekeeper, died after he was shot during a
robbery at his residence in El Fasher. Ahmed, part of a small group of
reinforcements sent to Darfur, became the UN's first casualty since its
arrival in the region.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 29, President Bush
ordered new US economic sanctions to pressure Sudan's government to
halt the bloodshed in Darfur.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 1, The UN refugee agency
said hundreds of women and children fled by foot and on donkeys from
Darfur to the neighboring Central African Republic after their town was
attacked by planes and helicopters. The refugees said their town of
Dafak, in southern Darfur, was attacked repeatedly by janjaweed militia
from May 12 to May 18 and that their homes had been bombarded by
airstrikes.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 1, The African Union
objected to a proposal for a 23,000-strong AU-U.N. force to help end
the bloodshed in Sudan's troubled Darfur region because it would give
the United Nations command and control.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 3, In Libya African
leaders sought to reconcile differences between neighbors Chad and
Sudan over Darfur and boost Somalia's embattled transitional government
at a regional summit.
(AFP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 6, The UN and African
Union chief executives resolved a dispute over command of a proposed
joint military force to help end bloodshed in Darfur, but the deal
still must be approved by their organizations' security councils and
Sudan's government.
(AP, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 12, Sudan agreed to a
"hybrid" UN-AU force of between 17,000 and 19,000 troops and an
additional 3,700 police. Some diplomats feared conditions may be
attached.
(Reuters, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 13, Sudan’s foreign
ministry said Sudan has formally rejected an international conference
on Darfur to be held in Paris this month because it was not consulted
beforehand.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 14, Sudan’s press
reported that 4 people were killed and at least 10 wounded when police
dispersed residents in the Kijbar region of north Sudan protesting a
dam project which they say will destroy their community.
(AFP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 21, China's special envoy
on Darfur said his country will seriously consider sending troops for a
peacekeeping mission in the war-torn Sudanese region and insisted
Beijing is doing its best to help solve the conflict.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 23, Sudan’s oil
production stood at 480,000 barrels per day with proven reserves at 1.6
billion barrels.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.54)
2007 Jun 27, Majzub al-Khalifa, a
close adviser to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir tasked with handling
the Darfur crisis, was killed in a road crash.
(AFP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun 28, In Sudan China's No.
1 oil company, CNPC, and Indonesia's PT Pertamina agreed to co-develop
a Sudanese offshore oil block, ignoring international efforts to
isolate Sudan over the crisis in its Darfur region.
(AP, 7/1/07)
2007 Jul 10, Sudan’s head of the
civil defense authority said flash floods across central and eastern
Sudan have killed 20 people and destroyed 15,000 houses, and predicted
worse weather conditions to come.
(Reuters, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 12, Sudan’s Interior
Ministry said flash floods across central and eastern Sudan have killed
30 people and destroyed 25,000 houses.
(AFP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 13, Andrew Natsios, the
US envoy to Sudan, accused the country's government of resuming bombing
civilian positions in its troubled Darfur region, and warned of a
"disturbing" trend of Arab groups resettling in the area.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 14, Sudan arrested 14
alleged plotters including retired army officers. The next day the
interior ministry accused an opposition leader of heading a plot to
overthrow the regime by creating armed chaos that would lead to
international intervention.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, UN and African Union
representatives gathered in Tripoli to evaluate Darfur.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 19, Sudan’s head of civil
defense said more than 50 people have been killed and 20 injured in the
worst floods in living memory which have partially or completely
destroyed 18,000 homes.
(Reuters, 7/19/07)
2007 Jul 21, Sudanese President
Omar al-Bashir, implicated by many in the international community in
Darfur's genocide, visited the troubled region for the first time in
the four-year conflict there.
(AP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 22, Egyptian police shot
and killed a Sudanese woman (28) and seriously wounded four others on
the Sinai Peninsula as they tried to sneak into Israel. They were among
27 Darfur refugees caught by border guards in the desert after paying
700 dollars (500 euros) to a Bedouin smuggler.
(AP, 7/22/07)(AFP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 23, The European Union
took the first step towards sending forces to Chad and the Central
African Republican to help the United Nations protect refugees trapped
in the violent region bordering Darfur.
(AP, 7/23/07)
2007 Jul 25, Sudanese papers
reported that another 16 people died in clashes between the two tribes
when Aballa men fell on a band of Torjum, killing nine.
(AFP, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 27, Sudan said it would
appeal a US ruling ordering it to pay $7.9 million in compensation to
the families of the 17 sailors killed in the October 2000 bombing of
the USS Cole in Yemen. The bombing was carried out by two Yemeni
militants with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network who had trained in
Sudan. US federal Judge Robert Doumar ruled in mid-March that Sudan
should be held accountable for the attack, and on July 25 ruled that it
must pay compensation to the families.
(AP, 7/27/07)
2007 Jul 31, A senior Sudanese
official said floods and heavy rains have caused 23,000 mudbrick homes
to collapse and killed at least 62 people across Sudan this month. In
southern Darfur Mahria Arab tribesmen attacked Terjem Arabs killing
over 60 Terjem. Conflict between Arab tribes was on the increase and
included clashes between the Habanniya and Salamat tribes.
(AP, 7/31/07)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.A16)
2007 Aug 1, Rebels captured the
town of Adila, where Sudanese troops were stationed to protect the only
railway linking Darfur to the capital of Khartoum. Some 100 (Sudanese)
soldiers or janjaweed were killed in the fighting.
(AP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 1, Denmark, France and
Indonesia offered to contribute to a joint UN-African Union mission for
Darfur, a 26,000-strong force expected to be made up mostly of
peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops. Sudan accepted
a UN resolution approving a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force
in Darfur.
(AP, 8/1/07)(AFP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 3, In Tanzania Darfur's
fractious rebel groups gathered for talks aimed at hammering out a
united front, following UN approval of a beefed up peacekeeping mission
in the Sudanese region.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 5, Darfur's fractious
rebel groups held a third day of reconciliation talks in Tanzania in a
bid to present a united front at future peace talks with Khartoum.
(AP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 6, In Tanzania Darfur's
rebel groups concluded four days of talks by agreeing on a common
platform to soon enter final peace negotiations with the Sudanese
government.
(AFP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 7, Darfur rebel
commanders shot down a government MiG 29 plane they say was bombing
civilian villages in their areas in Sudan's Darfur region.
(Reuters, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 9, The International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies more than doubled
its Sudan floods appeal to almost 5.5 million Swiss francs (4.6 million
dollars, 3.3 million euros) after flood waters rose above levels set in
1988.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 10, The Sudanese Media
Centre said security forces have handed 33 suspects accused of trying
to overthrow the government to the justice ministry for investigation.
(Reuters, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 10, Malawi said it will
deploy 800 troops to Darfur in Sudan to serve in the future United
Nations-African Union peacekeeping force.
(AFP, 8/10/07)
2007 Aug 11, A security official
said disarmament has finally started in south Sudan's state of Eastern
Equatoria under a 2005 peace deal now it has been made possible by the
departure of Ugandan rebels.
(Reuters, 8/12/07)
2007 Aug 17, Saudi King Abdullah
ordered two aid packages worth 20 million dollars each be dispatched to
Sudan and Mauritania to help the impoverished African countries hit by
severe floods.
(AFP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 19, In Sudan armed
raiders killed a policeman and wounded four others in an attack on a
refugee camp in Darfur.
(Reuters, 8/20/07)
2007 Aug 19, Israel said it would
expel refugees from Sudan's war torn Darfur region, touching off hot
debate over whether the Jewish state, founded after the Nazi genocide,
has a duty to take in people fleeing persecution.
(AP, 8/19/07)
2007 Aug 21, Sudanese forces
surrounded and attacked Darfur's most volatile camp to flush out rebels
they say are behind recent attacks on police.
(AP, 8/21/07)
2007 Aug 23, Sudan summoned the
envoy of the European Commission and the Canadian charge d'affaires and
informed them they were considered persona non grata because they
interfered in Sudanese affairs. The UN chief called on the Sudanese
military to remove troops remaining in southern Sudan, expressing
disappointment that a July 9 deadline was not met as called for in a
2005 peace deal.
(AFP, 8/24/07)(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Aug 23, Rwanda's exiled
opposition groups dismissed as insulting the appointment of General
Kerenzi Karake, a Rwandan general, as deputy chief of a planned peace
force for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.
(AFP, 8/23/07)
2007 Aug 25, Sudan said it will
allow an EU envoy it ordered out of the country to remain until his
tenure expires next month, following an EU apology.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 27, A Sudanese criminal
court dismissed the case against nine people on trial in connection
with the beheading of Mohammed Taha, a prominent journalist, and
brought formal charges against 10 other defendants. CARE’s country
director Paul Barker said the Sudanese government's Humanitarian Aid
Commission had given him 72 hours to leave the country without giving
reasons for the decision.
(AP, 8/27/07)(Reuters, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 29, JEM and Sudan
Liberation Movement (SLM) attacked an army base in the Kordofan region
next to Darfur, which they said was the logistical and supply centre
for ongoing attacks in South Darfur. The rebels said 15 soldiers were
killed. The government later reported that 41 people were killed in the
Kordofan region. Officials said floods across Sudan have killed 101
people, spread disease and destroyed livelihoods by wiping out
agricultural crops.
(Reuters, 8/29/07)(Reuters, 8/30/07)(Reuters, 9/1/07)
2007 Aug 30, Darfur rebels accused
the Sudanese government of bombing South Darfur, the latest attack in
an aerial campaign that has driven thousands of people from their homes
over the past month.
(Reuters, 8/30/07)
2007 Sep 3, UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon arrived in Sudan in a bid to jumpstart the peace process in
strife-torn Darfur ahead of a massive joint UN-African Union
peacekeeping operation.
(AFP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 5, Interior Minister Meir
Sheetrit said Israel will grant citizenship to some of the estimated
300 refugees from Sudan's violence-ridden Darfur region who have
already arrived.
(AP, 9/5/07)
2007 Sep 9, Southern Sudanese
officials said government troops have agreed to end their siege of 61
south Sudanese soldiers, resolving a stand-off that risked undermining
the north-south peace deal.
(Reuters, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 10, Sudanese government
forces resumed air strikes in Darfur with an attack on a town that
killed more than a dozen civilians.
(AP, 9/10/07)
2007 Sep 14, Sudan's President
Omar al-Bashir said his government is ready to implement a cease-fire
with rebel forces at the start of peace talks over the conflict in
Darfur, scheduled for next month in Libya.
(AP, 9/14/07)
2007 Sep 21, The Red Cross warned
that a massive aid effort is needed to cope with floods in 18 countries
across Africa that have already affected at least 1.5 million people
and killed at least 270 in Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda
and other countries.
(AFP, 9/21/07)
2007 Sep 22, To date 144 countries
had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture. Holdouts included
Sudan, North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and India.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.72)
2007 Sep 24, A group of UN experts
monitoring Darfur said that serious human rights violations appeared to
be continuing in the strife-torn western Sudanese region.
(AP, 9/24/07)
2007 Sep 25, Darfur rebel leader
Khalil Ibrahim said he would carry on fighting during upcoming peace
talks until a final settlement is reached to end the conflict in
western Sudan.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, The UN Security
Council unanimously passed a French resolution endorsing sending a
European Union-UN force to Chad and the Central African Republic to
protect civilians reeling from a spillover of the Darfur conflict.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 29, In Sudan a large
force of rebels stormed an African Union peacekeeping base in
Haskanita, Darfur, killing 12 soldiers and wounding 8 others in the
biggest attack on the mission so far. More than 50 AU peacekeepers and
support personnel were missing in action. In 2009 the International
Criminal Court (ICC) said fighters commanded by Darfur rebel chief
Bahar Idriss Abu Garda brutally murdered 12 African peacekeepers before
looting their camp.
(AP, 9/30/07)(Reuters, 10/8/07)(AFP, 10/19/09)
2007 Oct 1, Sudan's Pres. Omar
Hassan al-Bashir, during talks with members of a visiting group of
elder statesmen, promised to pay $300 million in compensation to the
country's war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge. This was
made public 2 days later by former US President Jimmy Carter, one of
the visiting elders.
(Reuters, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 1, The African Union
began probing an unprecedented attack on one of its bases in Sudan's
war-ravaged Darfur that left 10 peacekeepers dead and 40 missing,
vowing to punish those responsible.
(AP, 10/1/07)
2007 Oct 2, A group of elder
statesmen, including former President Carter and Nobel peace laureate
Desmond Tutu, began a tour of Darfur to promote a political solution to
the region's conflict.
(AP, 10/2/07)
2007 Oct 4, Prominent world
figures led by former President Carter and Desmond Tutu of South Africa
said they were shocked by the suffering in Darfur and criticized
Sudan's government in exceptionally harsh terms.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 4, Ethiopia pledged 5,000
troops to a future UN-African Union peacekeeping mission for Darfur.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 6, A UN inspection team
found the Darfur town of Haskanita, under the control of Sudanese
troops, burned down. The destruction of the town was in apparent
retaliation for the Sep 29 rebel attack on an African Union
peacekeeping base in which 10 AU troops were killed. 7,000 residents
were forced to flee the area.
(Reuters, 10/7/07)(WSJ, 10/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 8, Sudan said it will
host hundreds of Palestinian refugees who have been stranded in
terrible conditions on Iraq's border with Syria and Jordan.
(Reuters, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 8, Sudanese government
troops and allied militia attacked a town belonging to the only Darfur
rebel faction to sign a 2006 peace deal. The assault killed at least 45
people in the Darfur town of Muhajiriya, where bodies littered the
streets amid burned out buildings. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) said
five SLA soldiers were killed and eight injured. A key Darfur rebel
leader accused the Sudanese army of burning Haskanita in the troubled
region, killing up to 100 people in retaliation for an attack on
African Union troops.
(Reuters, 10/8/07)(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 11, Southern Sudan's
former rebels suspended participation in the central government,
accusing it of failing to abide by a peace deal in a dispute that
threatens a rare success in the troubled nation.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 14, Former rebels from
south Sudan delivered a letter to Khartoum detailing their demands for
resolving a crisis sparked by the southerners' pullout from the unity
government.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Oct 15,
Representatives of seven Darfur rebel groups met in south Sudan
to try to reach a common negotiating position ahead of peace talks with
the government.
(Reuters, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 15, European Union
foreign ministers gave their final approval to deploy a 3,000-strong EU
peacekeeping force for one year to help refugees and displaced people
living along Darfur's borders with Chad and the Central African
Republic.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 16, In Sudan 2 truck
drivers working for the UN's World Food Program were killed in an
ambush near the South Darfur town of Ed Daien. A 3rd was killed on Oct
12.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 17,
Sudan's former southern rebels said they would rejoin the
national government to work through a stalemate on implementing a 2005
peace deal which ended Africa's longest civil war.
(AP, 10/17/07)
2007 Oct 18,
Crisis talks between Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and
southern leader Salva Kiir ended without agreement on getting his
former rebels to rejoin the unity government they quit a week ago.
(AFP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 21,
Sudanese government officials said around 50 people have been
killed in three days of tribal clashes in the central region of
Kordofan.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 21,
Thousands of British Muslims gathered for a charity peace concert
dubbed "Muslim Live 8" to raise money for victims of Sudan's
long-running Darfur conflict.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 23,
A new Bin Laden tape called for foreign forces to be driven from
Darfur. The Justice and Equality Movement, one of the leading Darfur
rebel groups, attacked the Defra oil field in Sudan’s Kordofan region
and abducted 2 foreign workers. A rebel chief gave a one-week ultimatum
for foreign oil companies to cease operating in the zone.
(SFC, 10/24/07, p.A3)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 27, Sudan's government
and some rebel groups began talks in Libya to end 4-1/2 years of
conflict in Darfur. Sudan's government committed to a cease-fire in
Darfur, but mediators and journalists outnumbered the few rebels who
did not boycott the UN-sponsored negotiations, reducing hopes for an
end to the fighting. According to 2 rebel factions Sudan’s government
attacked the Jabel Moun area along the Chad-Sudan border.
(Reuters, 10/27/07)(AP, 10/28/07)(Reuters, 10/29/07)
2007 Oct 28, UN-brokered peace
talks ground to a halt, with officials saying there could be no key
steps until the fighters decided how to negotiate with the Sudanese
government.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Nov 2, Sudan’s President Omar
al-Beshir reached agreement with southern leader Salva Kiir, who is
also first vice president, that all provisions of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement would now be implemented by the end of the year.
(AFP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 6, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir met with South African President Thabo Mbeki in Cape
Town for talks on the situation in war-torn Darfur and political
upheaval in Khartoum.
(AP, 11/6/07)
2007 Nov 7, The UN said the
governor of South Darfur ordered the UN humanitarian director to leave
the state, which has been the scene of recent fighting. South Darfur's
Governor Ali Mahmood Mohammed said in a letter that Wael Al-Haj
Ibrahim, a Canadian, "was not complying with the Humanitarian Act," but
he didn't elaborate.
(AP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 12, A Darfur rebel group
freed five workers, including two foreigners, taken hostage in a rare
attack on a Sudanese oil installation almost three weeks ago.
(AFP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 13, Six breakaway
factions from one of Darfur's biggest rebel groups and two other
insurgent forces said they had united under one banner, in a rare but
tentative show of unity in the troubled region.
(Reuters, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 17, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir ordered the reopening of auxiliary training camps to
prepare for war and refused to accept certain countries from sending
peacekeepers to Darfur. Beshir said the "boots of those who attacked
the prophet Mohammed would never trample on Sudanese land". He was
referring to Swedes and Norwegians who want to participate in a
UN-African Union hybrid force set to deploy to Darfur. Beshir also said
Sudan would not allow Nepal or Thailand to send troops to Darfur,
although he agreed with the UN for engineering troops to arrive from
China and Pakistan.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 18, Two Sudanese
journalists from the independent Al-Sudani newspaper were jailed after
refusing to pay a fine for an article about the arrest of other
journalists.
(AP, 11/18/07)
2007 Nov 22, The World Health
Organization said an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Sudan has killed
164 people.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 23, Sudan's Pres. Omar
al-Beshir said he would not accept non-African troops in a combined
United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, apart from
Chinese and Pakistani technical units already committed.
(Reuters, 11/23/07)
2007 Nov 24, More than 100 Chinese
engineers arrived in Sudan's war-torn Darfur as part of the vanguard
for a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission to be in place next
year. Rebels demanded Beijing pull its peacekeepers out of Darfur, just
hours after a unit of Chinese army engineers arrived.
(AFP, 11/24/07)(AP, 11/25/07)
2007 Nov 25, In Sudan Gillian
Gibbons (54), a British teacher, was put under detention for allegedly
insulting Islam's prophet by allowing children to call a teddy bear
Mohammed. She was arrested because of a complaint under Article 125 of
the penal code, which provides punishment for publicly insulting or
degrading any religion, its rites, beliefs and sacred items or
humiliating its believers. On Nov 28 Sudan charged Gibbons with
inciting religious hatred.
(AFP, 11/26/07)(AP, 11/27/07)(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 29, Gillian Gibbons, the
British teacher arrested in Sudan on Nov 25 for insulting Islam by
allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad," was sentenced to
15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious
punishment of 40 lashes. Gibbons was pardoned after spending more than
a week in custody; she then left the country.
(AP, 11/30/07)(AP, 11/29/08)
2007 Nov 30, Thousands of
Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied in a central square
and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting
Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Dec 2, Defense lawyers said
Sudan has authorized the release of Mubarak al-Fadil, a high-profile
opposition leader detained for more than four months. Fadil is the
leader of the opposition Umma Party for Renewal and Reform and the
cousin of former PM Sadig al-Mahdi.
(AP, 12/2/07)
2007 Dec 3, Sudan's president
pardoned Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher jailed for insulting
Islam after allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Gibbons arrived back in England the next day.
(AP, 12/3/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 4, UN human rights
experts said Sudanese forces and allied militia have killed several
hundred civilians in ground attacks and aerial bombardments on villages
in Darfur in the past six months.
(Reuters, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 11, Darfur rebel group
the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it had attacked and taken
over a Chinese-run oilfield in central Sudan.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 12, North and south
Sudanese leaders said they had resolved almost all their differences
and that the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement would soon
rejoin the unity cabinet.
(AP, 12/12/07)
2007 Dec 16, Darfur rebels said
they had inflicted a crushing defeat on Sudan's army in West Darfur in
an overnight battle during which they captured 29 soldiers, 32 vehicles
and heavy weaponry.
(Reuters, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 24, Southern army
officials said militias supported by Khartoum's army have attacked
southern Sudanese soldiers near the north-south border killing dozens
of people.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Dec 27, South Sudanese former
rebels rejoined the national government, two months after walking out
because of disputes over the implementation of a peace deal that ended
two decades of war.
(AFP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 29, Sudan accused Chadian
aircraft of bombing its western Darfur region in what it called
"repeated aggressions" by its western neighbor. a Sudanese foreign
ministry statement said 3 Chadian war planes bombed two areas in West
Darfur on December 28.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 30, Local media reported
dozens of people have been killed in fighting between Arab tribesmen
and ex-rebel south Sudanese forces along the line separating north and
south Sudan.
(AFP, 12/30/07)
2007 Dec 31, In Sudan the African
Union transferred authority to a new joint peacekeeping force with the
UN in Darfur. An AU official said Ethiopia and Egypt will each send 850
troops early in the new year to serve with a joint UN-AU force in the
Darfur region.
(AP, 12/31/07)(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 Dec 31, President George W.
Bush signed into a law a measure aimed at allowing states, local
governments, mutual funds and pension funds to divest from Sudan
businesses, particularly its oil sectors.
(Reuters, 12/31/07)
2007 M.W. Daly authored “Darfur’s
Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide.
(Econ, 8/18/07, p.75)
2008 Jan 1, In Sudan an American
diplomat and his driver were shot to death in Khartoum. John Granville
(33), an official for the US Agency for International Development, was
being driven home at about 4 a.m. when another vehicle cut off his car
and opened fire before fleeing the scene. A group calling itself Ansar
al-Tawhid later claimed responsibility for the murder. On Feb 9
Sudanese security forces arrested two suspects in the murder. On Sep 20
five Sudanese Islamists admitted in filmed statements their role in
murdering Granville and his driver. They were formally charged on Feb
5, 2009. On June 24 four Islamists were sentenced to death. A 5th man
was sentenced to 2 years in prison for providing a weapon.
(AP, 1/1/08)(AP, 1/2/08)(AFP, 1/5/08)(AP,
2/10/08)(AP, 9/21/08)(AP, 2/5/09)(AFP, 6/24/09)
2008 Jan 2, Darfur rebels in Sudan
said they had taken a town around Geneina, the main city of west Darfur
which they claim to have surrounded.
(AFP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 3, South Sudanese
officials said North Sudanese troops have missed a third deadline to
fully redeploy from the south following over two decades of north-south
civil war that ended in 2005.
(AP, 1/3/08)
2008 Jan 4, Fresh fighting erupted
between southern Sudanese forces and Khartoum-backed Arab tribesmen
near key oil areas of the country, former southern rebels said, further
denting hopes of an end to north-south hostilities.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 7, Armed men opened fire
on a UN/African Union supply convoy in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region,
the first attack on the newly formed joint peacekeeping mission.
On Jan 10 Sudan admitted that its troops had opened fire on a joint
UN/African Union peacekeeping convoy in Darfur saying the attack was
the result of a "shared mistake."
(Reuters, 1/8/08)(Reuters, 1/10/08)
2008 Jan 9, Norway and Sweden
dropped plans to send some 400 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in
Darfur because of opposition by Sudan.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)
2008 Jan 14, A rebel chief said
Sudanese warplanes have been bombing rebel positions around the town of
Geneina for the past three days in a bid to break the siege on the West
Darfur state capital. Local media said gunmen stormed a Darfur prison,
setting free at least 90 detainees, as sporadic violence continued to
erupt throughout the western Sudanese region. A UN official in South
Darfur said the attack appeared to have been conducted by fighters from
the Salamat tribe of nomadic Arabs, who escaped with several of the
detainees also believed to be Salamat. The Salamat and other Darfur
nomadic tribes are among the groups suspected of belonging to the
janjaweed.
(AFP, 1/14/08)(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 15, A southern official
said in the local press that troops from northern Sudan are hiding out
in bushes of south Sudan in defiance of a peace deal requirement to
withdraw.
(AFP, 1/15/08)
2008 Jan 21, Sudan confirmed that
it has appointed Musa Hilal, the suspected head of a Sudanese militia
accused of murder, rape and other atrocities in Darfur, to a senior
government post. President Omar al-Bashir dismissed allegations against
the man as untrue.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 22, According to
anti-Khartoum Sudanese rebels armed militias backed by Sudan's
government killed 21 people in an attack on Sureif Judad, a village in
West Darfur.
(Reuters, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 28, The EU launched its
long-awaited peacekeeping force for Chad and the Central African
Republic to help protect hundreds of thousands of refugees from
strife-torn Darfur.
(AFP, 1/28/08)
2008 Feb 3, Chadian forces backed
by tanks and helicopter gunships struggled to repel a rebel assault on
the capital, and insurgents claimed to have trapped the president in
his palace. Chadian rebels, reportedly backed by Sudanese military
aircraft, launched an attack on the eastern town of Adre, which borders
on Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 2/3/08)(AFP, 2/3/08)
2008 Feb 5, UN officials said
Ethiopia and Bangladesh have offered to jump-start the UN peacekeeping
mission in Darfur by loaning it helicopters to fly troops and supplies
around the vast region in western Sudan.
(AP, 2/5/08)
2008 Feb 7, Chadian President
Idriss Deby Itno issued a "solemn call" for a European peacekeeping
force for Darfur refugees, to deploy as soon as possible. The president
also said he was "ready to pardon" six French aid workers convicted in
December of trying to kidnap more than 100 children they said were
orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 4, Ugandan rebels from
the Lord's Resistance Army killed 136 people and looted property during
an attack in and around Kajo-Keji in southern Sudan. In March officials
said Sudanese renegades frustrated with not being absorbed into the
military -- and not Ugandan rebels initially suspected -- were behind
the attacks in south Sudan.
(AFP, 2/8/08)(AFP, 3/15/08)
2008 Feb 8, The Sudanese military
said it bombed 3 towns in West Darfur while striking at rebel forces.
Rebels said Sudanese government aircraft, army and militia attacked
towns in West Darfur state, causing heavy civilian casualties. A rebel
chief said Sudanese troops backed by Janjaweed militia left at least
150 dead and wounded in the assault. A Sudanese employee of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed in Darfur.
On March 20 the UN accused the Sudanese army of looting towns and
raping girls and women during the attacks on Sirba, Sileia and Abu
Suruj. The attacks killed at least 115 people and caused some 30,000 to
flee their homes.
(AP, 2/8/08)(AFP, 2/8/08)(AFP, 2/12/08)(SFC,
3/21/08, p.A11)
2008 Feb 9, Sudan and the African
Union-UN peacekeeping mission for Darfur signed an agreement
determining how the joint force will operate, capping weeks of
drawn-out negotiations.
(AP, 2/10/08)
2008 Feb 10, The UN refugee agency
said up to 12,000 "terrified" refugees from Sudan's Darfur region have
fled across the border to neighboring Chad after the latest air strikes
by the Sudanese military and thousands more may be on their way.
(AP, 2/10/08)
2008 Feb 11, Chad's PM Nouradin
Koumakoye demanded that the international community remove refugees who
have fled to Chad from Sudan's Darfur region.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 12, The EU resumed
deployment of a much-awaited peacekeeping force for two countries
neighboring Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
(AP, 2/12/08)
2008 Feb 19, Sudan's army clashed
with Darfur rebels in the mountainous Jabel Moun area in a government
offensive to reclaim the West Darfur area from insurgents who took up
arms five years ago.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2008 Feb 26, The deadly conflict
in Darfur entered its sixth year with no solution in sight, as Khartoum
continued to resist the full deployment of a peacekeeping force amid a
fresh wave of bombings.
(AP, 2/26/08)
2008 Feb 27, In Sudan unidentified
gunmen attacked a village in Darfur, killing about 20 civilians. A
Darfur rebel group blamed pro-government militiamen for the dawn raid.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Feb 29, The UN refugee agency
said that 3,000 refugees from Darfur have arrived in Chad in the last
week, bringing the total number to over 13,000 in February alone.
(AFP, 2/29/08)
2008 Mar 1, At least 69 nomads and
nine soldiers were killed were killed in clashes with forces from the
ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army in southern Sudan.
(AFP, 3/2/08)
2008 Mar 3, The UN in Sudan
accused a rebel group of blocking access to a mountainous area in
Darfur where 20,000 people are trapped after fighting between
government and rebels.
(Reuters, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 4, In southern Sudan
activists warned that the 2006 arrival of White Nile Petroleum Company
(WNPOC), a consortium led by Malaysia's Petronas, in Unity State
threatens the Sudd wetlands, the world's largest maze of swamps,
lagoons and tributaries. Villagers said thousands were forcefully
evicted to make way for the low-sulphur crude oil venture. They lost
ancestral homes, died from contamination and saw livelihoods
jeopardized.
(AFP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 4, France pinned the
blame on Sudanese forces for a shooting near the border with Chad that
left one French soldier wounded and another missing and asked Sudanese
authorities for help in locating the missing soldier. Sgt. Gilles
Pollin’s remains were formally identified Mar 7 and flown to Paris from
Khartoum.
(AP, 3/4/08)(AP, 3/7/08)
2008 Mar 4, Ugandan troops clashed
with rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army inside neighboring Sudan.
(AFP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 6, Journalists and a
security official said Sudanese authorities have reimposed daily
censorship of newspapers after they published reports accusing the
government of backing Chadian rebels.
(Reuters, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 13, Chad accused Sudan of
sending anti-government rebels across their border into its territory
as international mediators struggled to broker a fresh peace accord
between the two neighbors. The presidents of Chad and Sudan signed a
non-aggression pact, vowing not to support rebel attacks against each
other, many of which were launched from troubled Darfur.
(AP, 3/13/08)(AFP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 13, A human rights group
said Chinese sales of assault rifles and other small arms to its ally
Sudan have grown rapidly during the Darfur conflict despite a UN arms
embargo.
(Reuters, 3/13/08)
2008 Mar 13, A deployment of 100
Sudanese soldiers arrived in Comoros, ahead of a likely African
Union-backed operation against the rebel island of Anjouan.
(AFP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 18, Darfur rebels said
they had fought off a major assault from Sudanese government forces in
the troubled region, inflicting casualties and pushing troops back to
West Darfur's capital.
(Reuters, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 22, In southern Sudan two
World Food Program (WFP) drivers on their way to the oil-rich Abyei
state were stabbed to death by six assailants.
(Reuters, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 25, In Sudan a World Food
Program (WFP) driver was shot dead and his assistant seriously wounded
in South Darfur state.
(Reuters, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 26, The African Union-UN
mission said 5 civilians were killed and more than a dozen others
injured when an international peacekeeping vehicle crashed into a bus
in Darfur.
(AFP, 3/26/08)
2008 Apr 6, Angry Sudanese border
guards killed one civilian and wounded three others in a market after
opening fire indiscriminately in Darfur's political capital.
(AFP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 8, The UN refugee agency
unveiled a new partnership with Internet giant Google to help track
refugees from Iraq to Darfur and raise public awareness of its work.
(AP, 4/8/08)
2008 Apr 9, In Sudan gunmen
attacked police from the African Union and UN peacekeeping force
(UNAMID) in Darfur for the first time, pistol whipping one officer in
the back of the neck. UNAMID police do not carry weapons and this
particular patrol was on duty without protection.
(AFP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 11, In Moldova a
Sudanese-owned transport plane laden with fuel crashed shortly after
takeoff from an airport near the capital and burst into flames, killing
all 8 people on board.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2008 Apr 12, In Sudan the Justice
and Equality Movement (JEM) clashed with Sudanese armed forces in West
Darfur near the Sudan-Chad border. Both sides claimed they had
inflicted heavy casualties.
(Reuters, 4/13/08)
2008 Apr 21, In Sudan gunmen
killed a second driver delivering food aid for the UN's World Food
Program in the Darfur region, where banditry has forced vital rations
to be halved.
(AFP, 4/24/08)
2008 Apr 22,
In Sudan counting started in a census seen as a vital step
towards holding democratic elections after a landmark 2005 north-south
peace deal. In southern Sudan ethnic clashes broke out that also
targeted equipment and facilities used in the nationwide census. Later
reports said some 95 people were killed.
(AP, 4/22/08)(AFP, 4/25/08)
2008 Apr 27, In Sudan China’s
state-owned China Water and Electric Corp (CWE) and Sino-Hydro signed a
400-million dollar (255-million euro) deal to raise the height of
Sudan's oldest dam, in the southern Blue Nile state.
(AFP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in
southern Sudan and called for demarcation of the contested oil-rich
border region between the north and south.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 2, South Sudan's defense
minister, Lieutenant General Dominic Dim Deng, was killed in a plane
crash along with 23 other people, most of them senior members of the
southern former rebel leadership.
(AFP, 5/2/08)(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 4, In Sudan government
bombs hit a primary school and a busy market place in Darfur, killing
at 12 people, including 6 children. Darfur rebels said three other
areas were also bombed: Ein Sirro and Jabel Medop in North Darfur and
an area in West Darfur near rebel-held Jabel Moun.
(Reuters, 5/5/08)(AP, 5/6/08)
2008 May 7, World Bank figures
indicated that donor countries and organizations had pledged some $4.8
billion to aid Sudan. Norway, the host of a donors’ conference, pledged
$500 million. The EU promised $435 million and Japan promised to double
its contribution to $200 million.
(WSJ, 5/8/08, p.A8)
2008 May 10, Sudanese soldiers
clashed with Darfur rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)
in the north of the capital Khartoum where a curfew has now been
imposed. Officials later said more that 200 people were killed in the
weekend fighting. The rebels had traveled from Chad in 191 land
cruisers and pick-up trucks. On May 27 an official Egyptian newspaper
claimed that Sudanese forces searching the rebel JEM movement found
modern Iranian weapons with them and that authorities had seized large
amounts of ammunition and Iranian equipment.
(AFP, 5/10/08)(AP, 5/13/08)(Econ, 5/17/08,
p.59)(AFP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 11, Sudan severed
diplomatic ties with Chad, accusing its neighbor of backing a first
ever Darfur rebel assault on Khartoum, and partly lifted a curfew amid
its clampdown on remaining rebels.
(AFP, 5/11/08)
2008 May 12, Sudan arrested its
leading fundamentalist Islamic ideologue, accusing him of aiding a
Darfur rebel attack on the capital. Hassan Turabi was arrested after
dawn at his home in Khartoum and at least 10 other members of his
Popular Congress Party members were detained in a government sweep
across the city. Authorities released al-Turabi and four members of his
party after detaining them for several hours.
(AP, 5/12/08)(AP, 5/12/08)
2008 May 12, Chad closed its
border with Sudan and put a halt to bilateral trade, a minister said, a
day after Sudan severed diplomatic ties with Chad.
(AP, 5/12/08)
2008 May 14, In Sudan clashes
erupted in Abyei between the northern-based national army and former
guerrillas from the south. Arab Misseriya nomads, some armed by the
northerners, and the southern Ngok Dinka, protected by the SPLM, held a
historic animosity in the area over land and water. The UN mission
(UNMIS) there did little more than protect the local UN base.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.66)(Econ, 11/22/08, p.33)
2008 May 15, In Sudan thousands of
civilians fled clashes between former north-south civil war foes in the
oil-rich central town of Abyei. The SPLM said more than $1 billion in
oil revenues from Abyei has been taken by the ruling National Congress
Party rather than shared with the south as the peace deal prescribes.
(Reuters, 5/15/08)
2008 May 20, In Sudan deadly
fighting raged between rival forces in Abyei, a flashpoint oil district
between north and south whose status remains contested three years
after the end of civil war. 22 government troops died in fighting that
threatened the peace process.
(AP, 5/20/08)(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Dozens of men on
horseback armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades
ambushed Nigerian peacekeepers serving with the joint UN-African Union
force in Darfur. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 27, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon said the UN will investigate allegations by a leading
children's charity that UN peacekeepers are involved in widespread
sexual abuse of children. The report by Save the Children UK was based
on field research in southern Sudan, Ivory Coast and Haiti.
(AP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 28, In Sudan a Ugandan
policeman serving with the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in
the western Darfur region was found dead riddled with bullets.
(AFP, 5/29/08)
2008 Jun 4-2008 Jun 5, In South
Sudan more than 20 people were killed, including soldiers and several
children, in Ugandan rebel attacks near the border with Congo. The
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas had targeted the villages of
Nabanga and Yamba.
(AFP, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 5, Sudan said it was
banning US companies from working with international peacekeepers in
Darfur and would not renew a contract held by a unit of US defense firm
Lockheed Martin Corp.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 8, The leaders of Sudan's
northern and southern halves signed an agreement to settle a dispute
over the oil-rich Abyei region that, if implemented, could stop the
nation's slide back into civil war.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jun 10, A Sudan Airways plane
carrying 214 people veered off a runway and burst into flames after
landing at Khartoum International Airport, killing at least 30 people.
(SFC, 6/11/08, p.A2)(AP, 6/12/08)
2008 Jun 15, The EU threatened to
impose sanctions against Sudanese who do not cooperate in bringing
those accused of war crimes in Darfur to the international court.
(AFP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 21, A Sudanese official
said Sudan is grounding its national carrier Sudan Airways from June 23
for at least a month for breaking civil aviation rules, mainly over
administration. On June 23 the Civil Aviation Authority agreed to a one
month reprieve.
(AP, 6/21/08)(AFP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 22, Sudanese media said
leaders of north and south Sudan have agreed to submit a dispute over
the oil rich Abyei region to international arbitration in The Hague.
(AP, 6/22/08)
2008 Jun 27, In Sudan a small
cargo plane crashed mid-flight, killing 7 crew members, including 5
foreigners, in the third fatal aviation accident to blight the African
country in the past two months. There was one survivor. Gunmen killed a
Ugandan driver contracted to deliver aid for the World Food Program in
Sudan, in the 7th such killing in the country in three months.
(AFP, 6/28/08)(AP, 6/28/08)(AFP, 6/29/08)
2008 Jun 30, In Sudan a cargo
plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Khartoum's airport, killing
all four Russian crew members aboard. The plane hit an electricity pole
shortly after takeoff and then crashed into an empty field.
(AP, 6/30/08)
2008 Jul 7, Sudan's parliament
approved a new electoral law, a crucial step towards scheduled national
elections and a democratic transition laid out in peace arrangements
after a 21-year civil war.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 8, In Sudan about two
hundred gunmen on horseback and in SUVs ambushed peacekeepers from a
joint UN-African Union force in the Darfur region. Five Rwandan
soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from
Uganda, were killed in fierce gunbattles that lasted more than two
hours.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 8, Sudan's army spokesman
claimed Ethiopian forces had attacked a police base 17 kilometers (11
miles) inside Sudanese territory, killing 19 people, including one
police officer. Ethiopia denied the accusations.
(AFP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 12, The Arab League said
it will hold crisis talks on Sudan after reports the International
Criminal Court may seek Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's arrest,
amid fears for peace efforts in Darfur. It would mark the first-ever
bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state.
The African Union said that plans by the ICC could jeopardize peace
efforts in Darfur.
(AFP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Sudan thousands of
protesters chanting "Down, Down USA!" rallied in Khartoum after reports
that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may seek the arrest of
Sudan's president for alleged war crimes. A stampede among crowds of
people attending a military graduation ceremony killed 17 people at the
al-Merriekh Stadium in Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum. The dead
were mostly women and children with 3 dozen others injured.
(Reuters, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, The prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to
wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and
deportation. The filing marked the first time prosecutors at the
world's first permanent, global war crimes court have issued charges
against a sitting head of state.
(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 15, China voiced concern
over an International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek an
arrest warrant for Sudan's president on charges of genocide in the
African country's war-torn Darfur region.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Sudan a
peacekeeper with the United Nations-African Union was shot and killed
in Darfur. The peacekeeper, believed to be a Nigerian company
commander, died while on patrol near a peacekeeping camp.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 17, A new company of
Chinese engineers deployed to Sudan's war-torn western region of
Darfur, boosting the number of UN-led peacekeeping troops to 8,000.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 18, Senegal’s President
Abdoulaye Wade said Sudan President Omar al-Beshir has agreed to
restore relations with Chad, more than two months after Khartoum
severed ties accusing Ndjamena of backing Darfur rebels.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 19, The Arab League
criticized the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for seeking
the arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying diplomacy
should be given a priority to solve the conflict in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 21, The African Union
urged the UN Security Council to put on hold the International Criminal
Court's move to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over
war crimes in Darfur.
(Reuters, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Sudan government
planes bombed Karbala, a Darfur village, while Pres. Bashir was
addressing cheering crowds in the nearby city of el-Fasher. according
to a rebel faction 3 people were killed and 8 injured.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, Sudan threatened to
expel peacekeepers from Darfur if President Omar al-Beshir is indicted
for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 26, Sudan’s army attacked
a rebel police post in North Darfur, killing four troops, before
conducting search operations in nearby villages according the Sudan
Liberation Movement (SLM). Sudan's army initially denied the report. On
July 29 Khartoum said rebels of Minni Arcua Minnawi's Sudan Liberation
Movement (SLM) attacked a convoy on that road and the police responded,
killing four of them and injuring two.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(Reuters, 7/29/08)
2008 Jul 31, Sudanese courts
sentenced another 22 alleged Darfur rebels to death over an
unprecedented attack on the capital last May in which more than 222
people were killed.
(AFP, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, Fourteen of the UN
security council's 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 1828 to
extends the mandate of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in
Darfur (UNAMID) for one year from this day, when it had been set to
expire. The United States abstained in the vote because language added
to the resolution noting concern that any indictment of Beshir might
jeopardize the Darfur peace process.
(AFP, 8/1/08)
2008 Aug 7, The US Olympic team
chose Lopez Lomong, one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan, to carry the flag
at the Olympic opening ceremony, throwing the spotlight on China's
much-criticized policy on Darfur.
(AFP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 8, In Beijing, China, the
29th Olympic Games, costing an estimated 40 billion dollars and
shrouded by political controversies, burst into life with a spectacular
opening ceremony. Actress activist Mia Farrow began Web-casting her own
"Darfur Olympics" from a refugee camp on the barren Sudan-Chad border,
aiming to shame China into using its influence with Khartoum to end the
Darfur conflict.
(AP, 8/8/08)(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 11, President George W.
Bush said he used talks with China's leaders during the Beijing
Olympics to press them to use their influence with Sudan to help end
the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
(Reuters, 8/11/08)
2008 Aug 12, Sudan's army began a
massive operation to wipe out rebel bases in Darfur's far north. The
army attacked with more than 200 vehicles in Wadi Atron, near the
Sudanese-Libyan border and took control of areas which had for years
been under the control of rebels who want more autonomy for the region.
North Darfur is part of Sudan's oil Block 12A operated by a consortium
led by the Saudi Arabian company al-Qahtani. Chinese companies dominate
Sudan's budding oil sector which produces more than 500,000 barrels per
day of crude.
(Reuters, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 17, A Sudanese court
sentenced to death a top Darfur rebel and seven others, bringing to 38
the number condemned to hang over an unprecedented attack on Khartoum
that killed more than 222 people.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 19, Turkey's President
Abdullah Gul urged Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, during talks at a
summit of African leaders, to act responsibly and to end the suffering
in the devastated Darfur region.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 20, In Turkey Sudan's
indicted president denied that his regime is orchestrating genocide in
the troubled western region of Darfur, and offered hope for an end to
the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair
elections next year.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Aug 25, Deadly clashes broke
out when Sudanese security forces thrust into Kalma, one of the largest
camps for displaced people in South Darfur, leaving at least 33 and as
many as 70 people dead.
(AFP, 8/25/08)(AP, 8/26/08)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A9)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers
commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers
and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur town of
Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked
a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 26, A Maltese fishing
trawler rescued the migrants. Authorities said the survivors first told
the fishermen that 10 people were missing, but later said as many as 70
people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan made the sea voyage with them.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who
commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a
remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour
standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Sep 6, Sudanese forces
launched ground and air attacks on two rebel bases in North Darfur,
killing an unknown number of people.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 7, A Darfur rebel group
says it has successfully repelled a government assault in North Darfur,
but the Sudanese government denies it carried out any operations in the
area.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 12,The Sudanese
government army and Janjaweed militias launched new attacks in a
mountainous area of south Darfur according to rebel claims made the
next day. UN boss Ban Ki-moon welcomed the establishment of an Arab
League panel led by Qatar that will work with the African Union and
United Nations to sponsor peace talks in Sudan's Darfur region.
(AFP, 9/12/08)(AFP, 9/13/08)
2008 Sep 13, In Sudan an army
spokesman said troops had entered the North Darfur area to arrest armed
bandits.
(Reuters, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 14, In Sudan Minni
Minnawi, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction turned
presidential advisor after signing the peace deal with Khartoum, said
his forces had came under attack at their base at Kolge in the east
Jebel Marra region.
(AFP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 15, Darfur rebels said
they were fighting back against attacking government troops for a
fourth day, the latest in a series of battles in Sudan's war-torn
western region.
(AP, 9/15/08)
2008 Sep 18, Rebels said Sudanese
aircraft bombed Darfur rebel positions in the latest offensive in the
war-torn region, with the UN reporting wounded government troops in the
area.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 19, Masked kidnappers in
Egypt seized 19 hostages including German, Italian and Romanian
tourists in a remote desert area near the Sudanese and Libyan borders.
The kidnappers demanded $15 million in ransom. On Sep 29 Egyptian and
Sudanese forces rescued the captives near the Sudanese-Chadian border.
(Reuters, 9/22/08)(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Sep 24, Sudanese forces were
laying siege to a remote desert hideout where bandits held 19 people
captive, including European tourists, but said they did not plan to
storm the area. Negotiations were continuing with the kidnappers, who
have reportedly demanded a ransom of up to 15 million dollars.
(AFP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 25, Pirates seized the
530-foot, Ukrainian cargo vessel, MV Faina, with 21 people aboard off
eastern Somalia. Russia's navy soon sent a warship to Somalia's coast a
day after pirates seized the Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 tanks,
ammunition and 3 Russian crew members. The ITAR-Tass news agency said
the military equipment had been sold to Kenya. It was later reported
that the arms were destined for southern Sudan and that Kenya’s
cooperation would be rewarded in the future with cheap oil. The shipped
was released on Feb 5, 2009, following a ransom of $3.2 million.
(AP, 9/26/08)(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A5)(Econ, 10/4/08,
p.49)(AP, 2/5/09)
2008 Sep 28, Sudanese forces
engaged a group of kidnappers in a gunbattle in northwest Sudan who had
been sent out to get gas and food. Six kidnappers were killed in the
fight, and two captured. The two told the authorities where the rest of
the kidnappers and their captives were hiding. The kidnappers were
believed to be armed desert tribesmen. Kidnappers released the
19-member European tour group, abducted on Sep 19, into one car near
the Sudanese-Chadian border. The group drove some 200 miles before
encountering Egyptian special forces and returning safely to Cairo.
(AP, 9/29/08)(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 29, US warships and
helicopters surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound
tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong
hands." The shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and
ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan, not
Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials. Somali pirates
demanded a $20 million ransom.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/29/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 29, In Sudan a helicopter
contracted to UN-led peacekeepers crashed in the Darfur region, killing
two people with two more feared dead.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Oct 5-2008 Oct 17, Arab
militia attacked at least 15 Sudanese villages. Aid workers and a
rights watchdog later said the violence near Muhagariya, a south Darfur
flashpoint has displaced 12,000 people and killed more than 40
civilians.
(AP, 10/25/08)
2008 Oct 6, A Nigerian UN
peacekeeper was killed when up to 60 gunmen ambushed a patrol in
Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN refugee agency
said at least 5,000 people have fled violence in northeastern Congo and
sought shelter in neighboring Sudan over the last two weeks due to
ferocious attacks by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army from
neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 7, Former Guantanamo
detainee Mustafa Ibrahim Mustafa Al Hassan arrived in the Sudanese
capital of Khartoum and vowed to campaign for the release of the
roughly 255 inmates remaining at the US military prison.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 9, According to the
Sudanese army 15 people were killed when Darfur rebels attacked a local
government convoy with military escort in the far west of the region.
(AFP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 11, In Sudan Abu Bakr
Kadu, a Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity commander, said 23 civilians
had died after Janjaweed Arab militia assaulted villages over 3 days in
the Muhagiriya area of southern Darfur. He also said 28 Janjaweed were
killed.
(AFP, 10/12/08)
2008 Oct 13, Sudanese officials
disclosed the arrest of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman (aka Ali
Kushayb), a Janjaweed militia leader who was charged by the Int’l.
Criminal court in 2007 for crimes against humanity.
(SFC, 10/14/08, p.A6)
2008 Oct 16, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir launched his "people's initiative" for peace in Darfur
with an elaborate ceremony attended by regional dignitaries but no
rebels involved in fighting.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 18, In southern Sudan
unknown assailants kidnapped nine Chinese oil workers.
(AP, 10/19/08)
2008 Oct 27, In central Sudan
kidnappers killed 4 Chinese oil workers out of nine they had been
holding hostage for more than a week. A local leader in troubled South
Kordofan state, where the hostages were abducted and killed, said the
Chinese died as a result of fighting between the Sudanese army and the
kidnappers. The next day 3 bodies and 3 wounded were flown to Khartoum.
A 4th body was found on Oct 29. The last 2 were reported found Oct 31,
one alive and one dead.
(AFP, 10/28/08)(AFP, 10/29/08)(AP,
10/29/08)(Reuters, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 29, In Sudan gunmen
opened fire on a group of South African peacekeepers guarding a well in
Darfur, killing one and seriously wounding another.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Nov 2, Ahmed Al-Mirghani (67)
former head of Sudan’s last democratically elected government
(1986-1989), died in Egypt. In 1989 a military coup led by current
President Omar al-Bashir unseated him.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 4, Sudanese journalists
launched a mass hunger strike, and three independent newspapers stopped
work for three days in the country's biggest organized media protest
against draconian censorship.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 8, Sudanese security
banned two newspapers from publishing after they protested against
draconian censorship measures and arrests of journalists.
(AFP, 11/8/08)
2008 Nov 9, Troubled neighbors
Chad and Sudan exchanged ambassadors, six months after diplomatic ties
were ruptured over tit-for-tat accusations of support for armed rebels.
(AFP, 11/9/08)
2008 Nov 12, Sudanese President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir, facing a possible indictment by the
International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur,
announced a ceasefire in the region.
(Reuters, 11/12/08)
2008 Nov 16, Sudanese and rebel
forces traded accusations that the other is initiating a new wave of
fighting in the ravaged Darfur region just days after the government
had offered a cease-fire.
(AP, 11/16/08)
2008 Nov 17, Sudanese police
detained more than 60 journalists for around three hours and instructed
them to go to court for protesting against draconian censorship.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 20, The International
Criminal Court prosecutor requested arrest warrants for rebels in
Sudan's Darfur region, accusing them of storming an African Union camp
and killing 12 peacekeepers in Sep, 2007.
(Reuters, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 26, Sudanese police
demolished about 10,000 homes in a shanty town south of Khartoum, using
tear gas to disperse protesting residents.
(AFP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 29, In Qatar French
President Nicolas Sarkozy told Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to
take action to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 11/29/08)
2008 Dec 13, Sudanese officials
said thousands have fled the volatile oil town of Abyei after fresh
north-south fighting has reignited tensions over the contested area.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 14, Uganda, southern
Sudan and Congo launched an offensive against the Lord's Resistance
Army bases based in eastern Congo in an attempt to end one of the
continent's longest and most brutal wars.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 15, Peacekeepers in Sudan
said as many as 250 people have died in separate tribal clashes in
remote parts of Sudan's south Darfur region over the last week.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 22, A Sudanese official
said at least 18,000 Eritrean and Somali refugees have arrived in Sudan
since the start of the year, and the government is struggling to
provide them with aid.
(Reuters, 12/22/08)
2008 Dec 29, In Sudan Lt.
Commander Pape Lamine Ndiaye, a Senegalese military officer, died after
being shot in Darfur on Dec 27, whilst serving with the AU peacekeeping
force.
(AFP, 12/31/08)
2008 Halima Bashir and Damien
Lewis authored “Tears of the Desert: One woman’s True Story of
Surviving the Horrors of Darfur.”
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.80)
2008 Craig Walzer compiled and
edited “Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People
of Sudan.”
(SSFC, 12/14/08, Books p.1)
2008 The ICC issued an arrest
warrant for Ahmed Haroun, Sudan’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, on
51 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly
committed in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003 and 2004.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2008 Qatar and Sudan set up a
joint venture for investments in Sudan, which focused on developing
agricultural land.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2009 Jan 5, President George W.
Bush authorized the immediate use of US aircrafts to transport supplies
to the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 8, Darfur rebels accused
Sudan's army of bombing their positions over the last 24 hours,
breaking a period of relative calm in the country's violent west.
(Reuters, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 13, Sudanese army planes
bombed near Muhajiriya in south Darfur, targeting rebels who had
rejected a 2006 peace agreement and the unconditional ceasefire
declared by Bashir last year.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 14, Sudanese security
officers arrested iconic opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi (76) two
days after he urged the head of state to surrender to the International
Criminal Court. Al-Turabi was freed on March 9.
(AP, 1/14/09)(Reuters, 3/9/09)
2009 Jan 15, The US Air Force
began airlifting heavy machinery to Rwandan troops serving in an
international mission in Darfur, the first time the new US Africa
Command has undertaken a large-scale peacekeeper support operation.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 18, The UN-African Union
peacekeeping mission said rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement
have taken control of Muhajaria town in the western Sudan region of
Darfur.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 22, Sudanese troops
battled with rebels in southern Darfur, and the fighting killed five
rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 24, Sudanese government
planes bombed a key town in south Darfur, a week after it was seized by
Darfuri JEM rebels. The next day peacekeepers said the bomb attack
killed and wounded civilians.
(Reuters, 1/24/09)(Reuters, 1/25/09)
2009 Jan 26, Sudanese warplanes
bombed Darfur rebel positions near the key town of El-Fasher ahead of
an expected ground offensive.
(AFP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 27, Sudanese armed forces
waged air strikes and artillery attacks on rebels in two key areas of
Darfur for a second day.
(AFP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 27, The UN refugee agency
said thousands of Congolese civilians have fled across the border to
South Sudan to escape rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 28, A Sudanese man,
Mohammed el-Sari, was jailed for 17 years on charges of trying to help
the International Criminal Court investigate a minister suspected of
war crimes in Darfur. He was arrested in June accused of trying to
solicit information about special police in Darfur, men trained and
paid by the government and supervised by current Minister of
Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun.
(AFP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 31, Sudan’s state media
reported that a US aid group has been thrown out of the Darfur region
after officials found thousands of Arabic-language bibles stacked in
its office. The Texas-based Thirst No More website described its work
in Darfur as focused on repairing and drilling water wells and makes no
mention of evangelism or other faith-based work.
(Reuters, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan, In northeast Sudan
Israel carried out an attack in which at least 30 people were killed,
to stop weapons being transported to Gaza during its offensive against
Hamas. Reports from Sudan quoted a lone survivor of the attack as
saying two planes flew over the convoy then came back and shot up the
"four or five" trucks. Israeli aircraft or drones destroyed 23 lorries
carrying Iranian arms destined for Hamas. On May 25 Sudan’s Defense
Minister Gen. Abdul-Rahim Hussein told parliament that the airstrikes
killed 56 smugglers and 63 people they were trying to transport across
the border to Egypt, including Somali and Ethiopian migrants.
(Reuters, 3/27/09)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.50)(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 Feb 1, In Sudan a spokeswoman
for the UN mission known as UNAMID said the has government asked
peacekeepers to clear out of the town of Muhajeria. She said Sudan
wants to launch an offensive against rebels from the Justice and
Equality Movement, a Chad-backed rebel group that has held the south
Darfur town since mid-January.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 10, A Sudanese government
delegation met Darfur rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement in
the Qatari capital for their first peace contacts since 2007.
(AFP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 14, Egyptian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit held talks with Sudanese President Omar
al-Beshir amid reports that the International Criminal Court has
decided to issue a warrant for his arrest..
(AFP, 2/14/09)
2009 Feb 17, The Sudanese
government and Darfur's most powerful rebel group signed an declaration
to conduct future peace negotiations, but failed to agree on a
hoped-for cease-fire after a week of talks.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 17, Sudanese writer Tayeb
Salih (b.1929), one of the most respected Arab novelists of the 20th
century, died in London where he spent most of his life. His books
included the classic "Season of Migration to the North" (1966) about a
Sudanese man's experiences of life and love in Britain in the 1960s.
(AFP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 18, Sudanese forces
bombed rebel positions in Darfur, with the ink barely dry on a deal
between Khartoum and the strongest rebel group that was hailed as a
turning point in efforts to end the six-year conflict. The next day the
Sudanese army said that it was an allied armed group that fought Darfur
rebels the previous day, not government troops.
(AP, 2/18/09)(AFP, 2/19/09)
2009 Feb 21, Sudan's justice
minister said Sudan will free 24 Darfur prisoners as part of a goodwill
agreement with rebels, even as fresh reports of violence came in from
the battle-scarred region. Two Sudanese working for Aide Medicale
Internationale, a French humanitarian group in Darfur, were shot dead
in an attack that also left four people wounded. A gang of 24 men on
horses and camels ambushed the workers on a road between Kurunji and
Khor Abeshe in South Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/21/09)(AFP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 24, In Sudan fighting
erupted in the key southern city of Malakal. Some 50 people were killed
and another 100 wounded in 2 days of fighting.
(AFP, 2/27/09)
2009 Feb 26, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir, who faces a possible arrest warrant for alleged war
crimes in Darfur, said he wanted to hold "free" elections soon to
guarantee stability.
(AFP, 2/26/09)
2009 Mar 1, In Sudan Riek Machar,
the vice president of the southern Sudan government, said clashes last
week between militia and local government troops in Malakal killed at
least 57 people and wounded nearly 100.
(AP, 3/2/09)
2009 Mar 3, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a massive hydro-electric project that has
displaced tens of thousands and is the largest to be built along the
Nile in 40 years.
(AP, 3/3/09)
2009 Mar 4, The International
Criminal Court at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has
ordered arrested. The French medical aid organization Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) said it was pulling staff out of Darfur after the
Sudanese government ordered them to leave. Sudan ordered at least 10
humanitarian groups expelled from Darfur.
(AP, 3/4/09)(AFP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 6, A UN spokesman said
its human rights office will examine whether Sudan's decision to expel
aid groups constitutes a breach of basic human rights and possibly a
war crime. UN agencies warned that Sudan's decision to expel 13
international aid groups will leave more than a million people without
food or health care and could threaten thousands of lives.
(AP, 3/6/09)(AFP, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 8, Sudan's Pres. Omar
al-Bashir threatened to kick out more aid groups and expel diplomats
and peacekeepers during his first trip to the beleaguered Darfur region
after an international court indicted him on war crimes.
(AP, 3/8/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sudan 4 soldiers
from the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in the war-torn
Darfur region have been wounded in an ambush.
(AFP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 11, In Sudan armed men
abducted three international aid workers and two Sudanese guards in the
Darfur region, a week after the government ordered aid groups expelled
in response to an international arrest warrant for Sudan's president on
war crimes charges. The abducted workers were from the Belgian branch
of Doctors Without Borders and they were seized from their offices in
the Saraf Umra area.
(AP, 3/12/09)
2009 Mar 13, A spokeswoman for
Doctors Without Borders says 35 of its foreign staff are leaving Darfur
after the abduction of three colleagues.
(AP, 3/13/09)
2009 Mar 14, In Sudan 3 foreign
aid workers kidnapped in Darfur were freed and were returning to
Khartoum with an official who said they were abducted in response to
the international arrest warrant issued for the Sudanese president.
(AP, 3/15/09)
2009 Mar 16, Sudan's Pres. Omar
al-Bashir he wants all international aid groups out of the country
within a year, insisting they can drop off supplies "at airports or
seaports" and let Sudanese organizations take care of it.
(AP, 3/16/09)
2009 Mar 16, Amr Moussa (b.1936),
former Egyptian Foreign Minister and head of the Arab League, said AL
countries will not carry out an International Criminal Court request to
arrest Sudan's president on charges of war crimes in Darfur.
(AP,
3/17/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amr_Moussa)
2009 Mar 17, In Sudan a UN/African
Union peacekeeper was killed in an ambush in Darfur.
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 17, US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will be
responsible for "every single death" caused by the expulsion of 13
foreign aid groups from Sudan.
(Reuters, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 18, Defiant Sudanese
Pres. Omar al-Bashir rallied Arab supporters in Darfur by saying no war
crimes court or the UN Security Council can touch even "an eyelash" on
him despite an international order for his arrest.
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 18, US Pres. Barack Obama
named retired Air Force general Scott Gration as his special envoy to
Sudan to confront what Washington sees as a "horrendous" situation in
Darfur.
(AFP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 20, In Sudan the Justice
and Equality Movement (JEM), a major rebel group in Darfur, said it had
decided to end peace talks with the Sudanese government until it lets
back aid groups expelled from the troubled region.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 23, Sudan's president
traveled to Eritrea, choosing one of Africa's most politically isolated
nations for his first trip abroad since an international court sought
his arrest on charges of war crimes in Darfur. Adam Khater (39), the
Fellowship for African Relief's Darfur director, was shot to death at
his home in the town of Kongo Haraza, near Sudan's border with Chad.
(AP, 3/23/09)(AP, 3/24/09)
2009 Mar 25, Egypt, one of the
strongest US allies in the Middle East, welcomed Sudan's president
despite an international warrant seeking his arrest on charges of war
crimes in Darfur. Egypt is not an ICC signatory and both it and the
Arab League have backed al-Bashir.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, Sudanese officials
said at least 2 people were killed when attackers set fire overnight to
a camp for the internally displaced in Darfur, destroying hundreds of
shelters. A spokesman for the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality
Movement (JEM) put the toll at three dead and three injured and blamed
a pro-government militia for the attack.
(AFP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 26, Sudan's president
Omar al-Bashir visited his third country in four days, this time
touching down in Libya, the latest country to welcome the leader who's
wanted by an international court on war crimes.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 29, Sudan's Pres. Omar
al-Bashir, who is sought by an international court on charges of war
crimes in Darfur, received a warm welcome in Qatar, where he will
attend this week's Arab League summit.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Mar 31, The US Government
Accountability Office released a report saying 4 countries designated a
terrorism sponsors received $55 million from a US supported program
promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the IAEA’s Technical
Cooperation program. Between 1997 and 2007 Iran received over $15
million, $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received over
$11 million each.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar, Adam Osman Mohammed (32)
was gunned down in his home in front of his wife and four-year-old son
just days after arriving in his village in south Darfur. In August,
2008, he was flown to Khartoum under the Britain’s assisted voluntary
return program, in which refugees are paid to go back to their country
of origin.
(www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/424417.html)
2009 Mar, In Southern Sudan
hundreds of women and children were killed in the Jonglei province.
Some local put the totals at over 700.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.47)
2009 Apr 1, Sudanese President
Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Saudi Arabia for a brief pilgrimage,
his latest trip abroad in defiance of an international arrest warrant
against him.
(Reuters, 4/1/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Sudan new US
special envoy Scott Gration told journalists he had come to "look,
learn and listen" and hoped for its friendship and cooperation,
indicating a shift in tone by Washington under President Barack Obama.
(Reuters, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Sudan armed men in
the Darfur kidnapped two aid workers Claire Dubois of France and
Canadian Stephanie Jodoin, of Aid Medicale International (AMI). They
were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el
Fursan. Both women were released on April 29.
(AFP, 4/5/09)(Reuters, 4/12/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 15, A Sudanese court
condemned 10 rebels from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement
to death for an unprecedented attack on Khartoum in May, 2008, which
killed more than 220 people.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 16, In Sudan US Senator
John Kerry said after talks with senior officials that Khartoum would
allow some foreign aid to be restored in its western Darfur region but
that it was not sufficient.
(Reuters, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 19, In Sudan 21 people
were killed when a bus they were travelling in collided with a truck
about 25 miles south of Khartoum.
(AFP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, A south Sudan
district official said weekend clashes left more than 170 people dead
as armed fighters from the Murle ethnic group in remote Akobo county in
eastern Jonglei state attacked Lou Nuer villages.
(AFP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 21, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir arrived in Ethiopia, on his sixth foreign trip since an
international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes was issued against
him.
(AFP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 22, A Sudanese court
sentenced 11 members of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM) to death and acquitted five others for an unprecedented 2008
attack on Khartoum. A district official said the death toll from
clashes between rival ethnic groups in south Sudan has risen to 250
people, with dozens of children also abducted.
(AFP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 26, A Sudanese court
sentenced another 11 Darfur rebels to death for a 2008 attack on
Khartoum, raising to 82 the number of Justice and Equality Movement
fighters ordered hanged for the raid.
(AFP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 30, The UN Security
Council extended for another year the mandate of UN peacekeepers in
southern Sudan who monitor compliance with a peace deal that ended
Sudan's two-decade-long civil war.
(Reuters, 4/30/09)
2009 May 5, Sudan denied
accusations by the government of Chad that its forces had launched an
attack against the neighboring African state.
(AFP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 5, H.H Sheikh Sultan Bin
Tahnoun Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA),
announced the official launch of Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort at the
Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Sudan had recently signed a
leasing agreement with an Al Ain National Wildlife for some 6,180
square miles of southeastern wilderness to be developed as a safari
site with semi-permanent tented camps and top-class hotels.
(www.ameinfo.com/155601.html)(Econ, 7/11/09, p.46)
2009 May 6, Senior Sudanese aid
official Hassabo Mohammed Abdelrahman said that Khartoum was ready to
allow foreign aid groups to operate in Darfur but ruled out the return
of the 13 aid agencies kicked out in March.
(AFP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Sudanese President
Omar al-Beshir named Ahmed Harun, who is wanted for war crimes in
Darfur, as governor of disputed south Kordofan province, transferring
him from his post as a state minister. In 2007 the ICC issued a warrant
for Harun on 51 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity
allegedly committed in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003 and 2004.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 7, A UN peacekeeper was
shot dead and his car stolen by unknown gunmen in the South Darfur
state capital Nyala.
(AFP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 8, South Sudanese gunmen
killed up to 49 people from a rival tribe, most of them women and
children, in one of a string of attacks that have raised fears for
elections in the region. Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided the
village of Torkeij, home to the Nuer Jikany, in the region's Upper Nile
state, in apparent revenge for cattle thefts.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)
2009 May 8, South Sudanese gunmen
killed dozens of people from a rival tribe, most of them women and
children, in one of a string of attacks that have raised fears for
elections in the region. Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided the
village of Torkej, home to the Nuer Jikany, in the region's Upper Nile
state, in apparent revenge for cattle thefts. Some 71 people were
killed in Torkej.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.49)
2009 May 11, In Sudan armed men on
camel and horseback shot dead three Sudanese policemen in an ambush in
the war-ravaged western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 16, Sudan accused Chad of
mounting a second series of air strikes on its territory and said the
conflict between the African neighbors must be resolved politically.
(AFP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 17, In Sudan rebels of
Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said they had seized a
town in North Darfur after a clash with government forces.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 17, The International
Criminal Court said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Sudanese rebel leader, has
turned himself in to face war crimes charges for an attack that killed
12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 17, Chad said its air
force had completed raids on "mercenaries" inside Sudan, announcing its
aircraft had destroyed seven groups of fighters while ground forces had
captured 100 prisoners on the border.
(Reuters, 5/17/09)
2009 May 21, Sudan announced the
results of a nationwide census seen as crucial to prepare
constituencies for elections next year, but which former southern
rebels said they would reject. The census showed Sudan to have a total
population of 39,154,490, with 8,260,490 or 21 percent living in the
south.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 24, In Sudan raiders
attempted but failed to overrun the army base at Umm Baru, close to the
Chadian border in north Darfur. The next day an army spokesman said 20
Sudanese soldiers were killed in the fierce fighting and that 43 rebels
had died.
(Reuters, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, In Sudan scores of
policemen and nearly 200 tribesmen were killed when 3,000 armed Arab
tribesmen on horseback attacked security forces in the oil-producing
Southern Kordofan region.
(Reuters, 5/26/09)(Reuters, 5/29/09)
2009 May 28, In Sudan Darfur's
most active rebel group said it intends to free 60 Sudanese troops as a
"sign of goodwill" ahead of Qatari-brokered peace talks with Sudan's
government.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 May 30, Former Sudanese
President Gaafar al-Nimeiry (b.1930) died after a period of illness. He
took power in a coup in 1969 and brought Islamic rule to Sudan. He
spent 16 stormy years as Sudan's leader until he was ousted in April
1985 by a military coup and granted political asylum in Egypt.
(Reuters, 5/30/09)
2009 Jun 1, China's special envoy
to Darfur met with Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir and pledged three
million dollars in humanitarian aid for the volatile region. Liu Guijin
"greeted the president for the beginning of talks in Doha between the
JEM and the government."
(AFP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 8, Sudan passed an
amended version of a media bill that sparked protests in Khartoum last
month, but the new version failed to allay the fears of many Sudanese
journalists.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 10, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a new plant that he said will begin
producing ethanol from sugar cane with a target of 200 million liters
in two years. Former rebels who fought a devastating 22-year civil war
in south Sudan began laying down their arms as the UN’s biggest
demobilization program stepped up a gear.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 12, At least 40 south
Sudanese soldiers and civilians were killed when tribal fighters
ambushed boats carrying UN food aid, the latest in a string of ethnic
attacks threatening a fragile peace deal.
(Reuters, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 26, Canadian citizen
Abousfian Abdelrazik, accused by the UN of being linked to al Qaeda,
flew out of Sudan after a court order ended his six-year exile in
Khartoum. Abdelrazik was born in Sudan and gained Canadian citizenship
in 1995 after entering the country as a refugee. He returned to Sudan
in 2003 to visit his sick mother and was arrested and held by Sudanese
authorities on two occasions.
(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 28, In Sudan 6 people
were killed in weekend tribal clashes between Nuba and Misseriya
tribesmen in Sudan's South Kordofan region, which borders Darfur.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 1, Darfur rebels signed
an accord with one of Sudan's main opposition parties in Cairo,
agreeing to push for a new transitional government, a move that will
infuriate Khartoum.
(Reuters, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 2, African heads of state
meeting in Libya discussed a drastic new decision against the
International Criminal Court that would in practice give Sudan's
president impunity from prosecution for war crimes by the ICC, a draft
document at the AU summit showed. Leaders also struggled to overcome
divisions on a proposed "African government", as Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi pressed for a powerful new continental authority.
(AP, 7/2/09)(AFP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Sudan gunmen
kidnapped an Irish and Ugandan women from the office of the Irish aid
group Goal in the North Darfur city of Kutum. A Sudanese watchman was
also seized before being released later. Arab tribes supported by the
government were implicated. Sharon Commins (33) and her Ugandan
colleague, Hilda Kuwuki (42), were released on Oct 18.
(AFP, 7/4/09)(AP, 10/18/09)(AFP, 10/24/09)
2009 Jul 3, Sudanese police
arrested 13 women in a raid on a Khartoum cafe for wearing trousers in
violation of the country's strict Islamic law. 10 of them were flogged
inside a Khartoum police station. One of those arrested, journalist
Lubna Hussein, said she is challenging the charges, which can be
punishable by up to 40 lashes.
(AP, 7/13/09)(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Libya peacekeepers
in Somalia and the war crimes warrant for Sudan's president dominated
the final day of an African Union summit, after a late-night compromise
on a new regional authority. Africa's leaders agreed to denounce the
International Criminal Court and refuse to extradite Sudan's President
Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in
Darfur.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 8, A senior UN official
said fighting between tribes in southern Sudan has increasingly
targeted women and children and likely killed more than 1,000 people
since January.
(AP, 7/8/09)
2009 Jul 13, Uganda said it would
arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir if he enters the country, an
unusual stance after a summit of African leaders denounced the
international arrest warrant against al-Bashir.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 16, The Chadian rebel
Union of Forces of Resistance (UFR) claimed the Chadian air force
attacked two villages in the southeastern Chadian region of Tissi.
Rebels claimed some 50 had been killed some 100 wounded. Sudan accused
Chad of launching air raids on its western region of Darfur.
(AFP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 18, Sudanese rebels set
free 60 captured government soldiers and policemen in north Darfur. The
detainees had been held by the Justice and Equality Movement following
recent armed clashes.
(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 19,
Sudan said it was committed to peace with neighboring Chad after
accusing it of bombing its western Darfur region last week, but also
warned it would not be held back if threatened.
(AFP, 7/19/09)
2009 Jul 22, An international
arbitration panel awarded the Sudanese government control over almost
all major oil reserves in a disputed region of Sudan that erupted into
violence last year between state forces and former southern rebels.
(AP, 7/22/09)
2009 Jul 29, A Sudanese court
adjourned the case of Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, a woman journalist facing
40 lashes for wearing "indecent" trousers. 10 women had already been
whipped on July 3 for similar offences against Islamic law. "I wish to
resign from the UN, I wish this court case to continue," Hussein told a
packed courtroom before the judge adjourned the case to August 4.
(AFP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jul 30, The UN Security
Council unanimously extended the mandate for the joint UN-African Union
peacekeeping mission which has been slowly deploying in Sudan's
conflict-torn Darfur region.
(Reuters, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 31, Turkey's navy
commandos aboard a frigate captured seven pirates in the Gulf of Aden
off Somalia's coast. Turkish commandos had captured five other pirates
in a similar operation in the Gulf of Aden a week ago.
(AP, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 2, In southeast Sudan
armed tribesmen attacked a fishing village where hundreds of displaced
people were camped near a river, leaving at least 185 people, most of
them women and children, dead in the worst violence in three months.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 4, Sudanese police fired
tear gas and beat women protesting outside a Sudanese court during the
trial of a female journalist accused of violating the Islamic dress
code by wearing trousers in public. The judge adjourned Lubna Hussein's
trial for a month to seek clarification from Sudan's foreign ministry.
(AP, 8/4/09)
2009 Aug 18, In Sudan clashes
between rival militias broke out in the southern oil-rich Unity state,
the latest to hit a region still recovering from two decades of civil
war.
(AFP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 19, In Sudan former
enemies from the north and south signed a deal aimed at bolstering the
2005 peace deal that ended a 22-year civil war, the African continent's
longest.
(AP, 8/20/09)
2009 Aug 27, In Sudan Martin
Luther Agwai, the outgoing military commander of the joint UN-African
Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping force in the western Sudan region, said
there is no more war in Darfur. Agwai defended his soldiers against
persistent criticism of their effectiveness, insisting they have ended
the massacres that long plagued the Sudanese region. The Nigerian
officer will be replaced next week by Rwandan Patrick Nyamvumba.
(AFP, 8/27/09)
2009 Aug 28, In southern Sudan the
Lou-Nuer tribe attacked a village of the Dinka tribe in Twic East
County, leaving 46 people dead and 15 in critical condition. The
attackers wore new military uniforms and were using new machine guns,
but did not provide their identity.
(Reuters, 8/29/09)(AP, 9/1/09)
2009 Aug 29, In Sudan an armed
group kidnapped two foreign civilians working for the joint UN-African
Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Sep 4, In southern Sudan
heavily armed fighters attacked an ethnic Dinka settlement in
Bony-Thiang, north of the state capital Malakal, killing 20 people.
Angry Dinka groups then launched a retaliatory raid on the nearby
Shilluk village of Bon, killing five people including a woman and two
children.
(AFP, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 7, A Sudanese judge
convicted Lubna Hussein, a woman journalist, for violating the public
indecency law by wearing trousers outdoors and fined her $200, but did
not impose a feared flogging penalty. Hussein said she will not pay a
penny while still in court custody, wearing the same trousers that had
sparked her arrest.
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 7, UK-based Global
Witness said they had found serious discrepancies in reports of Sudan's
oil revenues which could mean Khartoum's government was underpaying its
strife torn south by hundreds of millions of dollars.
(Reuters, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 8, Sudanese journalist
Lubna Ahmed Hussein, who spent a day in jail for refusing to pay a fine
for wearing "indecent trousers," vowed on her release to keep up the
battle against the law. The UN’s human rights office said Sudan's
conviction Hussein for indecency for wearing trousers violates
international law and is emblematic of wider gender discrimination in
the Islamic country.
(AFP, 9/8/09)(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 18, In Sudan Darfur
rebels accused Sudanese government forces of attacking their positions
over the last 2 days, weeks after a senior peacekeeper said the region
was no longer in a state of war.
(Reuters, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 20, The Sudanese army
said it has cleared several more areas of rebel control in North Darfur
province ahead of peace talks set for October. Rebels denied the
government claims. In southern Sudan Lou Nuer tribesman attacked the
village of Duk-Padiet in Jonglei state killing around 102 people,
including 51 civilians and 23 attackers.
(AP, 9/20/09)(AFP, 9/21/09)
2009 Sep 27, Sudan’s President
Omar al-Beshir announced the immediate lifting of state censorship on
the press, meeting a key demand of the media ahead of Sudan's first
elections in almost 25 years.
(AFP, 9/27/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Venezuela Pres.
Hugo Chavez proposed that South American and African nations unite to
create a cross-continental mining corporation to keep control of their
resources. Chavez made diplomatic inroads in Africa at a summit of
South American and African leaders where he offered Venezuela's help in
oil projects, mining and financial assistance. Venezuela signed
agreements to work together on oil projects with South Africa,
Mauritania, Niger, Sudan and Cape Verde.
(Reuters, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Sudan a Nigerian
peacekeeper was killed and two Kenyan colleagues were wounded in the
troubled Darfur region when armed men ambushed their convoy.
(Reuters, 9/29/09)
2009 Sep 30, Amnesty International
said tens of thousands of women who fled unrest in Darfur face the
daily threat or rape and violence in refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 2, In southern Sudan
fighting broke out in an oil-rich area between forces loyal to an
ex-warlord and the state’s governor.
(AP, 10/2/09)(AFP, 10/3/09)
2009 Oct 3-2009 Oct 4, In southern
Sudan 16 people were killed in clashes between forces loyal to an
ex-warlord and the governor's guards in oil-rich Unity State. At least
23 people were killed and more than a thousand fled their homes in
ethnic clashes over the weekend.
(AFP, 10/5/09)
2009 Oct 11, Four Sudanese who
face the death penalty for killing a US diplomat dismissed their
defense team, denounced the trial as political and labeled the United
States murderers of Muslims. John Granville (33), who worked for the US
Agency for International Development, and his driver, Abdelrahman Abbas
Rahama (39), were killed Jan 1, 2008.
(Reuters, 10/11/09)
2009 Oct 12, A Sudanese court
sentenced 4 Islamists to death for a 2nd time for the murder of a US
diplomat John Granville and his driver in Khartoum last year. The
sentencing came after the mother of John Granville, who worked with the
US Agency for Int’l. Development (USAID), and the wife of driver Abdel
Rahman Abbas both demanded the men be executed.
(AFP, 10/12/09)
2009 Oct 16, A top southern
Sudanese official said former enemies in north and south Sudan have
reached agreement on details for a key referendum on the south’s full
independence. Clashes broke out in the remote border region between
southern Sudan and north-west Kenya. At least three Kenyan soldiers
were reported killed in cross border raids. An officer was killed when
security forces tracked down raiders in south Darfur, shooting dead two
of the attackers in an exchange of fire. Two officers were killed a day
earlier as up to four men raided a guesthouse in the south Darfur town
of Kass.
(AFP, 10/16/09)(AFP, 10/17/09)(Reuters, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, In western Sudan 3
peacekeepers were wounded, two of them seriously, when their vehicle
came under fire in the Darfur region.
(AFP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 18, In Sudan Irish
national Sharon Commins and Ugandan Hilda Kawuki, who worked for Irish
charity GOAL, were freed. They had been kidnapped on July 3 at
gunpoint. The Irish Times newspaper reported on Oct 24 that a
150,000-euro (225,000-dollar) ransom was paid to secure the release of
two aid workers in the western Darfur region.
(AFP, 10/24/09)
2009 Oct 19, US President Barack
Obama unveiled a new policy on Sudan and warned Khartoum of more US
pressure if it failed to respond to his fresh incentives to stop
"genocide" and "abuses" in Darfur.
(AFP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 21, A Sudanese cargo
plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Sharjah International Airport
north of Dubai, killing the 6-member crew but causing no other
casualties on the ground.
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 22, A Sudanese court
sentenced two women to 20 lashes for dressing "indecently." Judge
Hassan Mohammed Ali said: "The two women wore trousers and no
headscarf. The court therefore finds them guilty according the public
order laws." Last year nearly 43,000 women were detained for indecent
clothing offences in Khartoum region, where five million people live.
(AFP, 10/22/09)
2009 Oct 22, In Sudan gunmen
kidnapped Gauthier Lefevre (35), a French staff member working for the
International Committee of the Red Cross, in the western Darfur region.
The kidnappers soon demanded a three-million-euro ransom.
(AP, 10/22/09)(AFP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 27, President Barack
Obama formally renewed US sanctions on Sudan under his new strategy of
keeping up pressure while offering incentives to the Khartoum
government. Robert Cabelly (61), a former State Department employee and
US lobbyist, was charged with violating Sudanese sanctions regulations,
acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, money laundering,
passport fraud and making false statements.
(Reuters, 10/27/09)(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 27, A UN official said
more than 300,000 children under the age of five die of preventable
diseases each year in Sudan, almost a third of them before they reach
the age of one month.
(AFP, 10/28/09)
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