Bahr el Ghazal
The Bahr el Ghazal is both a river and a region of southwestern Sudan, the region taking its name from the river. The name means "Gazelle River" in Arabic.
The river flows about 805 km (500 miles) east to Lake No, where it joins the Bahr el Jebel to form the Bahr el Abiad (White Nile).
The eponymous region is an area of swamps and ironstone plateaus inhabited mainly by the Dinka, who make their living through subsistence farming and cattle herding. For many years it was subjected to raids mounted from the neighboring region of Darfur by Fur and Arab slave traders. The trade was suppressed in 1864 by the khedive of Egypt but re-emerged under powerful native merchants, who set themselves up as princes complete with armies. The most powerful of them, al-Zubayr, fought and defeated a joint Turkish/Egyptian force sent to Bahr el Ghazal in 1873. The khedive conceded defeat and made Bahr el Ghazal a nominal province of Egypt, with al-Zubayr as its governor. The region was later incorporated into Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and, from 1956, became a province and then a state of the independent Republic of Sudan. In 1996, the region was divided as part of an administrative reorganisation of the country.
The region has been affected by civil war for many years. In 1982, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army was formed there to fight the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. The subsequent conflict lasted until 2003 and killed more than two million people. See History of Sudan#Civil strife.
