The United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) was established by the UN Security Council under Resolution 1590 of 24 March 2005, in response to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement on January 9, 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya.

UNMIS tasks are to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, to perform certain functions relating to humanitarian assistance, protection, promotion of human rights, and to support African Union Mission in Sudan. The mandate of UNMIS ended on 9 July 2011; the UNSC officially ended the mission on 11 July 2011, with a drawdown by 31 August 2011. Equipment and personnel will be transferred to UNISFA and UNMISS.

Its most well-known employee was journalist Lubna al-Hussein, who resigned in order to waive her immunity.

According to the [http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unmis/facts.html UN Facts and Figures s: Khartoum, Sudan

Up to 10,000 military personnel including some 750 military observers; as well as 715 civilian police, 1,018 international civilian staff, 2,623 national staff and 214 UN Volunteers. There is a small African Union force on the ground that will in time be incorporated into the U.N. force. Troops will be located in 6 different Sectors, with military observers in charge of observing the ceasefire. Force protection will be provided by various contributing countries.

Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir (Arabic: عمر حسن أحمد البشير‎; born 1 January 1944) is the President of Sudan and the head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

In October 2005, al-Bashir's government negotiated an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War, one of the longest-running and deadliest wars of the 20th century, by granting limited autonomy to Southern Sudan dominated by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Since then, however, there has been a violent conflict in Darfur that has resulted in death tolls between 200,000 and 400,000. During his presidency, there have been several violent struggles between the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups such the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the form of guerrilla warfare in the Darfur region. The civil war has resulted in over 2.5 million people being displaced, and the diplomatic relations between Sudan and Chad being at a crisis level.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).

During Carter's term as President, two new cabinet-level departments were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), 1980 Summer Olympics boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Salva Kiir Mayardit (born September 13, 1951) is the first President of the Republic of South Sudan.

In the late 1960s, Kiir joined the Anyanya in the First Sudanese Civil War. By the time of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, he was a low-ranking officer. In 1983, when John Garang joined an army mutiny he had been sent to put down, Kiir and other Southern leaders joined the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the second civil war. Garang had little military field experience and relied upon the more experienced Anyanya veterans, including Kiir, to actually carry out the ground war. Kiir eventually rose to head the SPLA, the SPLM's military wing. An attempt to remove Kiir from his post as SPLA chief of staff in 2004 nearly caused the organization to split.

Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement formally ending the war in January 2005, which he had helped start, he was appointed Vice President of Southern Sudan. Perhaps significantly, former Southern Sudan president John Garang like Kiir is of the Dinka people, though of a different clan. After the death of Garang in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005, Kiir was chosen to succeed to the post of First Vice President of Sudan and President of Southern Sudan. Kiir is popular among the military wing of the SPLM for his battlefield victories and among the populace for his unambiguous pro-secession stance.