Second Sudanese Civil War

The Second Sudanese Civil War resumed in 1983, after the Khartoum government under President Gaafar Nimeiry abrogated the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement's autonomy provisions and imposed Islamic sharia law nationwide, prompting southern forces to regroup as the Sudan People's Liberation Army under John Garang. Over more than two decades of fighting, compounded by repeated famine and mass civilian displacement, the war became one of the deadliest conflicts anywhere since the Second World War. It ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, which restored southern autonomy and established a process leading to the 2011 referendum in which the south voted overwhelmingly for independence, creating the new state of South Sudan.