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Sudan

Related pages: Sudan homepage | Darfur page | UK Development Assistance | Southern Sudan

Quick facts

• 35.5 million people currently live in Sudan of which 40% live on less than one dollar a day.
• In 2005 Sudan’s income per capita (GNP) was $790. The average annual growth rate over past 5 years is 6.26%. The main export from Sudan is oil.
• Sudan has been in a state of civil war for most of the last 50 years. In the last twenty years of fighting, an estimated 2 million people have died, and a further 4 million have been displaced. In January 2005, parties in North and South Sudan signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
• The Government of President Bashir has been in power since 1989 (they came to power through a military coup). Elections took place in in 2000 in Northern Sudan, when the Government was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. However, opposition political parties boycotted the elections, alleging major irregularities and misconduct. Under the CPA, national elections at presidential, parliamentary and state government levels are due over the whole country including the South and Darfur in 2008.
• In 2003, low-level conflict in Darfur (in the west of Northern Sudan) escalated into serious fighting involving rebel movements, the Government of Sudan, and Arab militias.
• As a result of this conflict, hundreds of thousands of people have died and over 2 million people have had to flee their homes and are still displaced. The humanitarian situation is very precarious; only the massive international effort (currently the world’s largest humanitarian response) is preventing complete catastrophe. But the increasing insecurity on the ground is severely hampering humanitarian operations. As a result of the many years of conflict in Sudan, it is very difficult to find reliable statistics. All the figures in this factsheet are quoted from international sources and are the best estimates.
• Net primary school enrolment/attendance is 53% , compared to 100% in the UK. There are great disparities between the North and the South. The adult literacy rate is 61.2% in the North compared to 21% in the south; the ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education is 95% in the North and 59% in the South.
• Average life expectancy is 57 years for women and 54 years for men, compared to 79 in the UK.
• The likelihood of Sudanese children dying before the age of five is more than 16 times greater than in the UK. Malaria, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases (all of which are preventable) kill more than 100,000 children annually.
• 5% of women die in childbirth, compared to 0.07% in the UK.
• It is estimated that 400,000 people between the age of 0-49 years are living with HIV and AIDS.
• For 2006, 5.52 million people across the country are reliant on food aid; 2.5 million are in Darfur.
• Over half of people living in Sudan lack access to sanitation. Nearly half have no source of safe drinking water.

Last Updated 6 June 2007

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