Kurdufan

States of the Kurdufan region 1994–2005

Kurdufan (also Kordofan ) is a cultural landscape and a former Sudanese province. It covers the area of ​​the present-day Sudanese states of Shamal Kurdufan (North Kordofan) and Dschanub Kurdufan (South Kordofan).

description

A unified province of Kordofan existed until 1994. After that, the area was divided into the three states of Shamal Kurdufan, Dschanub Kurdufan and Gharb Kurdufan (Westkordofan) as part of a territorial and administrative reform . In the course of the peace treaty between the then central Sudanese government and the southern Sudanese rebel organization SPLA , the state of Gharb Kurdufan was dissolved again in 2005 and divided between the two remaining Kordofan states. In the south of Kordofan are the regions of Abyei and the Nuba Mountains, which are disputed between South Sudan and (North) Sudan .

The main town of the region is al-Ubayyid (also called El Obeid), the region is 380,225 km² and in 1983 was populated by around 3 million people.

The area of ​​Kurdufan was already in the Iron Age settlement area of ​​an urban culture that was apparently largely independent of the Nile valley, especially in the area of ​​the upper reaches of the Wadi el-Melek . The ruined cities of Zankor and Abu Sufyan were settled at least from the 1st century AD until probably into the 13th century. Also in northern Kurdufan, especially in the area between Jebel Haraza and Jebel al-Ain , there are numerous archaeological sites that have so far been little explored.

From the early 16th century, the Kurdufan area was disputed between the Sultanates of Funj and Darfur .

From 1821 Kurdufan was conquered by Muhammad Ali Pascha , the viceroy of Egypt, formally subordinate to the Ottoman Sultan.

From 1837 to 1839 Kurdufan was thoroughly researched by the Austrian African explorer Ignaz Pallme .

During the Mahdi uprising of Muhammad Ahmad , Kurdufan became a theater of war again. The Mahdist army was able to take the provincial capital of Kurdufan's El Obeid on January 19, 1883 after a four-month siege. Muhammad Ahmad established his headquarters in El Obeid. After the capture of El Obeid, the government of the viceroy of Egypt recognized the danger of the Mahdi uprising. In the spring of 1883 all available Egyptian troops were dispatched to retake El Obeid. This army, under the British Hicks Pasha , was wiped out on November 5th in the Battle of Sheican and the Mahdists conquered all of Sudan. In November 1899, the successor of Mahdi Abdallahi ibn Muhammad was decisively defeated and destroyed here in the battle of Umm Diwaykarat.

Landscape impressions and settlement sites around 1850

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literature

• Escayrac de Lauture : Le Désert et le Soudan. Dumaine, Paris 1853, ( digitized version ).
• Ignaz Pallme : Description of Kordofan and some neighboring countries (= journeys and country descriptions of the older and more recent times. Lfg. 24). Cotta, Stuttgart et al. 1843, ( digitized ).

Web links

Commons : Kurdufan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Brigitte Gratien et al .: Abou Sofyan et Zankor. Prospections dans le Kordofan occidental (Soudan) . Villeneuve d'Ascq, 2013
2. ↑ Jana Eger & Tim Karberg: New research in North Kordofan. Preliminary report on the field campaigns of the InterLINK project in 2017 and 2018 In: Der antike Sudan 30, 2019, pp. 131–146