Sudan is the largest and one of the most diverse countries in Africa, home to deserts, mountain ranges, swamps and rain forests.
It emerged from a two-decade civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the Animist and Christian south, only to see fighting break out in the western region of Darfur in early 2003.
The north-south civil war is said to have cost the lives of 1.5 million people. In Darfur, the UN says more than two million people have fled their homes and more than 200,000 have been killed.