Al-Bashir: The splitting of Africa’s largest country

 PAUL ARHEWE 14/07/2011

Sudan’s President al-Bashir addresses the parliament in Khartoum on Tuesday Last week Saturday the long awaited secession of Sudan was finally conducted as South Sudan becomes Africa’s newest country. The man in the middle of the storm, while this North African country civil war and internal crisis lasted, is President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. President al-Bashir on Tuesday announced austerity measures for Sudan and proposed to change the country’s currency after Africa’s newest country, South Sudan, had announced same measure the previous day.

Background

Al-Bashir was born 1 January, 1944 in Hosh bannaga in Khartoum. He hails from Al-Bedairya Al-Dahmashya, a clan of the larger ja’alin tribe, a Nubian tribe in north of Sudan, then part of the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan. He received his primary education there, and his family later moved to Khartoum where he completed his secondary education. Al-Bashir is married to his cousin Fatima Khalid. He also has a second wife named Widad Babiker Omer, who had a number of children with her first husband Ibrahim Shamsaddin, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation who had died in a helicopter crash. Al-Bashir does not have any children of his own.