Multiparty politics, banned after the 1989 coup, was reintroduced in 1999. The National Congress Party (formerly the Islamic National Front; NIF), long the only legal party, continued to dominate the political scene in the years immediately following, until the April 2019 coup; it was disbanded later that year. Other political associations active in Sudan include the Ummah Party and the Democratic Unionist Party.

Security

Sudan’s armed forces were greatly expanded after 1969, mainly to cope with the long-running rebellion in the south. By the early 1980s the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) consisted of an army, a navy, and an air force. In 1990–91 the government began to establish a militia and also instituted a military draft to furnish recruits to conduct the war with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) rebels. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the civil war between the northern government and southern rebels allowed for the continued existence of both forces, although the number of troops on both sides was to be reduced. In 2011, prior to southern secession, the status of SPLA fighters who resided in the north was a contentious issue; it was ostensibly resolved when an agreement to absorb them into the SAF was reached in the weeks before the south declared independence. Because of instability in the country’s Darfur region in the west and in the Abyei area along the border with South Sudan, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces were stationed in the country.

In the Darfur region, Arab militias known as the Janjaweed were active in the early 2000s, working at the behest of the Sudanese government against the primarily African agriculturist groups there. By 2014 the Janjaweed had been absorbed into a new paramilitary unit called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that was active throughout the country. The 2019 constitutional declaration provided for the RSF being placed under the command of the SAF head.

Health and welfare

Varying ecological conditions in Sudan, poor hygiene, and widespread malnutrition result in a high incidence of fatal infectious diseases. The most common illnesses are malaria, measles, and tuberculosis. Cerebrospinal meningitis, whooping cough, and infectious hepatitis are not uncommon. Many Sudanese in rural areas suffer from temporary undernourishment on a seasonal basis. Malnutrition is prevalent year-round in Darfur, especially among children, because of the disruptive effects of ongoing conflict.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, the Ministry of Health initiated a national program intended to provide primary health care throughout the country with an emphasis on preventive medicine. A lack of funds severely affected the plan’s implementation, as it would the government’s establishment in the early 1990s of three tiers of health care at the federal, state, and local levels. At the beginning of the 21st century, roughly half of all Sudanese had access to health services, but accessibility greatly depended upon geographic location. Most of the country’s small number of physicians are concentrated in the urban areas, as are the major hospitals.

Education

A modern educational system was established in Sudan in the 1970s, when the government reorganized a haphazard system of schools inherited from the British colonial government. In the Muslim areas of the north, boys were long instructed in religious subjects according to traditional methods. Primary education was begun by the British in the Sudan after 1898, and secondary education began in 1913. The University of Khartoum was formally established in 1956 from the University College of Khartoum, which itself dated from the merger in 1951 of two smaller colleges founded by the British.

After being extensively reorganized in 1969 and during the 1970s, the Sudanese educational system was reorganized yet again in 1992. Under that system, eight years of primary education (later made compulsory in 1998) begin at age six. Three years of secondary education—either academic or vocational in nature—then follow. The primary language of instruction in primary schools is Arabic.

In addition to the University of Khartoum, higher education is provided by several other universities, including Al-Neelain University and Sudan University of Science and Technology, both in Khartoum, and Omdurman Islamic University, which trains Muslim clerics and scholars, in Omdurman. Between 1990 and 1995 the number of universities in Sudan more than doubled—the result of government efforts to expand opportunities for higher education. English was formerly the medium of instruction in the country’s universities and secondary schools but has now been largely replaced by Arabic. Literacy rates in Sudan, although showing improvement since independence, are still relatively low when compared with the rest of the world: about three-fifths of adults in Sudan are able to read. There is a disparity in literacy rates between urban and rural areas: almost four-fifths of adults residing in urban areas are literate, whereas only about one-half are literate in rural areas.