The northern and southern Sudanese are separated by religion and culture. The Northerners see themeselves as Arab and Muslim. The tall black Nilotic peoples of the south are Christian and animist. The more fundamental Muslims feel a missionary zeal to bring the south and the whole of Sudan under Islamic rule.

Richard Dowden – in the book Sudan

“After discovering Islamism in Algeria, I wanted to see a country that was already islamic. It could have been Afghanistan or Iran, but it so happens I had a friend, Artur K. Vogel, who was about to spend three weeks in Sudan for a major Zurich newspaper, and I went with him.
The woman on the picture worked for the Farm Bank in Khartoum. Every day after work she would go and train with weapons for the Popular Defense Force. That was how the militia trained its women soldiers.”