Armenians in Sudan

There is an Armenian community in the Sudan estimated to be less than one thousand Armenians. Most are concentrated in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Today Sudanese Armenians number about 50 people.

Sudan's Armenian community had its own church, the St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church (in Armenian Sourp Krikor Lousavoritch). It is under the jurisdiction of the See of Holy Echmiadzin.

As of 2009, there are not as many Armenian in Khartoum, Sudan. Most of Sudana Hyes have moved, to the U.S. and parts of Europe.

The Armenian Club was huge, and had its own indoor gathering hall, and an outdoor dance hall with a full restaurant kitchen, a play stage, soccer field, and basketball court, also billiards rooms, and a very large swimming pool. It was a place where so many families used to gather nightly and have dinner and at times the Sudana Hye community would invite singers from the U.S. like Adiss amongst others. As the weather was very hot in Sudan, they would mostly stay outdoors at the Armenian Club and have dinner and the kids would play together. The club although it is still there, it has been given back to the Sudanese. As there are not as many Armenians as before in the country to visit the facility.

Armenians

Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, hayer [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands.

Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide.

Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world's oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus' death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion.

Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց ցեղասպանություն Hayots tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, "Great Crime"), was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects inside their historic homeland, which lies within the present-day Republic of Turkey. The number of victims is estimated at between 800,000 and 1.5 million. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to Ankara, the majority of whom were eventually murdered.

The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. Other indigenous and Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were similarly targeted for extermination by the Ottoman government, and their treatment is considered by some historians to be part of the same genocidal policy. Most Armenian diaspora communities around the world came into being as a direct result of the genocide.

Sudan

Sudan (Arabic: السودان‎ as-Sūdān, English pronunciation (US) ⁱ/suˈdæn/, (GB) /suːˈdɑːn/), officially the Republic of the Sudan (Arabic: جمهورية السودان‎ Jumhūrīyat as-Sūdān), is a country in north-east Africa. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west and Libya to the northwest. It is the third largest country in Africa. The River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Its predominant religion is Islam.

Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, simultaneously evolved systems of pharaonic kingship by 3300 BC. By virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language (earliest records dating to the 9th century). Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa (after Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and also the third largest country in the Arab world (after Algeria and Saudi Arabia).

Armenian

Armenian refers to something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia:

See also