The British and Egyptian Governments recognize the…
December 1959 CE
The United States is among the first foreign powers to recognize the new state.
However, the Arab-led Khartoum government reneges on promises to southerners to create a federal system, which leads to a mutiny by southern army officers that sparks seventeen years of civil war, from 1955 to 1972.
In the early period of the war, hundreds of northern bureaucrats, teachers, and other officials serving in the south are massacred.
The National Unionist Party (NUP), under Prime Minister Ismail al-Azhari, dominates the first cabinet, which is soon replaced by a coalition of conservative political forces.
In 1958, following a period of economic difficulties and political maneuvering that paralyzes public administration, Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Abboud overthrows the parliamentary regime in a bloodless coup d'état.
