2023-04-28 18:03:58
As fighting between the army and paramilitaries plunges their country into civil war, more than 14,000 Sudanese have fled to Egypt since the start of the conflict, according to an announcement by the Egyptian authorities on Thursday 27 April. Many residents continued to rush north to reach this country which shares 1,200 km of border with Sudan.
Although Egypt has long occupied Sudan, the two countries maintain neighborly relations that alternate between cooperation and vassalage. At the heart of their concerns, the Nile, the only source of irrigation and drinking water for the two countries with strong population growth.
► 1820, the Egyptian conquest of Sudan
Mehemet Ali, the wali of Egypt, then part of the Ottoman Empire, conquers northern Sudan. The region had long linguistic, cultural, religious and economic ties with Egypt and had partially been under the same administrative authority at different times since the time of the pharaohs.
The Sudanese religious leader Mohammad ibn Abdallah, having proclaimed himself the “Mahdi”, the one whose return to Islam is expected, unifies the country’s tribes and takes the lead in a revolt against Egyptian domination. He inflicted a crushing defeat on the Egyptian army then marched on Khartoum.
► 1899, the Anglo-Egyptian settlement on Sudan
Since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt, a strategic point on the route to India, has taken on considerable importance in the eyes of the United Kingdom. In 1882, British forces occupied Egypt and de facto Sudan. Defeated by the Mahdi, the British decide to regain control of Sudan.
After several military victories, in 1899 they established an Anglo-Egyptian settlement over Sudan. According to this agreement, Sudan was to be administered by a governor general appointed by Egypt and approved by the United Kingdom. In fact, Sudan is administered as an English protectorate, divided into two separate territories: the north, mainly Arabic-speaking and Muslim, and the animist or Christian south, more Anglicized.
When the British put an end to their occupation of Egypt in 1936, they maintained their forces in Sudan, to the chagrin of the Egyptians whose ruler Farouk would like to be recognized as “King of Egypt and Sudan”.
► 1956, independence
The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 led by Gamal Abdel Nasser hastened the end of the British occupation. It officially relinquishes Egyptian sovereignty over its southern neighbor to force the UK to do the same. The Egyptian and British governments put an end to their condominium on Sudan and sign a treaty guaranteeing the independence of the country which takes effect on January 1, 1956.
Barely independent, Sudan plunged into civil war. The government in Khartoum refuses to keep its promise to create a federal state in the southern provinces. The officers of the southern regions mutinied. The conflict lasted seventeen years, until 1972.
► 1959, the sharing of the waters of the Nile
Egypt and Sudan signed a Nile Water Sharing Treaty in 1959. The two countries downstream of the river grant between them 87% of its flow, estimated at 84 billion cubic meters of water per year, to the detriment of the other countries neighboring the river. Egypt, which considers it has “historical rights” on the Nile takes the lion’s share (55.5 billion cubic meters of water, against 18.5 for Sudan).
► The 2000s, relaxation
General Omar El Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989 and relations between Egypt and Sudan deteriorated. They are at their lowest in 1995, when members of the Sudanese state are complicit in an assassination attempt against the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.
In 1999, the Sudanese president went to Egypt where Hosni Mubarak accepted that their countries renew diplomatic relations. In 2004, they signed the four freedoms agreement, recognizing the right to possession, movement, residence and work between the two countries.
Egypt, which has always supported one united Sudan, is not taking part in the peace process that ends the Sudanese civil war. However, it accepts the result of the referendum on secession in January 2011, which gives birth to South Sudan.
► The Nile, source of life and protest
The 1959 water-sharing agreement between Egypt and Sudan is disputed by the other countries of the Nile basin. They concluded a separate treaty in 2010 allowing them to develop projects on the river without having to seek agreement from Cairo.
Ethiopia, in particular, has been building the Great Renaissance Dam since 2013 on the course of the Blue Nile. Egypt and Sudan are violently opposed to this project, which calls into question their hegemony over the coveted waters of the river. The Blue Nile alone provides 59% of the Nile’s flow. On this issue, Egypt and Sudan have become partners, united to enforce what they consider to be their right.
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