First Sudanese Civil War

The First Sudanese Civil War was fought from 1955 to 1972, beginning even before Sudan's formal independence from joint British and Egyptian rule in 1956, between the central government in Khartoum, dominated by the Arab Muslim north, and rebels in the largely Christian and animist south organized around the Anyanya movement. The southern insurgency was driven by grievances over political and economic marginalization under northern-led rule inherited from the colonial period. The war ended with the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, which granted southern Sudan a significant measure of regional autonomy, though the settlement proved fragile and its provisions were later revoked by the central government.