Colonialism

Ethnically, Southern Sudan is much more a part of eastern and central Africa than it is a part of Northern Sudan. Owing to the lack of natural boundaries, its fronteirs with the neighbouring countries in the East, South and West were settled by agreement [of the Colonial powers]. This has caused considerable inconvenience for, generally speaking, the lines traverse the territories of occupied by individual tribes. On the eastern frontier with Ethiopia, the Anuak and the Nuer tribes have been divided between Sudan and Ethiopia, a situation which compelled the Condominium administration in the Sudan to lease Gambella to Ethiopia in 1902. The Sudan-Uganda border passes through the Acholi land with the result that the tribe is divided as ar Madi, Langi and Kakwa. Similarly, the Sudan-Zaire border was arbitrarily made to follow the Nile watershed thus dividing the Zande tribe between the two countries.1