Blue Nile ( ar, النيل الأزرق ') is one of the eighteen states of the Republic of the Sudan. It was established by presidential decree nº 3 in 1992 and is named after the

Blue Nile River The Blue Nile (; ) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the water ...

. The region is host to around forty different ethnic groups. Its economic activity is based on agriculture and livestock and increasing mineral exploitation. In 2011, residents of Blue Nile were scheduled to hold ill-defined "popular consultations" to determine the constitutional future of the state, per the

Comprehensive Peace Agreement The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA, ar, اتفاقية السلام الشامل, Ittifāqiyyah al-salām al-šāmil), also known as the Naivasha Agreement, was an accord signed on January 9, 2005, by the Sudan People's Liberation Movem ...

. Instead, a dispute over the rightful government of the state, and the determination of Omar al-Bashir to eradicate the

Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North Sudan People's Liberation Movement – North ( ar-at, حركة الشعبية لتحرير السودان-الشمال, Harakat Al-Sha'abi Li-Tahrir Al-Sudan-Al-Shamal), or SPLM–N, is a political party and militant organisation in the Republic ...

, have led to a renewed insurgency and a

refugee crisis A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants. A ...

. It appears that the consultations have been postponed indefinitely.

Administration

The State is sub-divided into six districts (with 2006 Census populations shown hereafter): *

Ad-Damazin Ad-Damazin ( ar, الدمازين, Ad-Damāzīn) is the capital city of Blue Nile, Sudan. It is the location of the Roseires Dam and power generation plant. Ad-Damazin is served by a terminal station of a branch line of the national railway net ...

(212,712) * Al Kormok (110,815) * Ar Roseires (215,857) * Tadamon (77,668) * Bau or Baw (127,251) * Qeissan (87,809)

State Governors

* Feb 1994 – Dec 1997 : Abdalla Abu-Fatma Abdalla * Dec 1997 – Jan 2000 : Abd ar-Rahman Abu Madyan * Jan 2000 – Feb 2001 : Al-Hadi Bashra * Feb 2001 – 2003 : Hassan Hamadayn Suleiman (1st time) * 2003 – 2004?: Abdallah Uthman al-Haj * 2004 – 2005: Hassan Hamadayn Suleiman (2nd time) * Sep 2005 – Jul 2007 : Abdel Rahman Mohamed Abu Madien * Jul 2007 – 20 Sep 2011 : Malik Agar Eyre * Sep 2011 – Apr 2013 : Yahya Mohamed Khair (1st time) * 1 Apr 2013 – May 2018 : Hussein Yassin Hamad * 14 May 2018 – Feb 2019 : Khalid Hussein Mohamed Omer * 24 Feb 2019 – Apr 2019 : Yahya Mohamed Khair (2nd time) * Apr 2019 - 2020 : Ahmed Abdul-Rahim Shukratall * 22 Jul 2020 - 27 Dec 2020 : Abdul Rahman Mohammed Nour al-Daiem * Dec 2020 - 13 Jun 2021 : Jamal Abdel Hadi * 13 Jun 2021 - ''Incumbent'' : Ahmed al-Omda

Geography

Blue Nile state has an area of 45,844 km² and an estimated population of 1,193,293. The Central Bureau of Statistics quoted the population at 832,112 in the 2006 census.

is the capital of the state. The state of Blue Nile is home to the

Roseires Dam The Roseires Dam ( ar, خزان الروصيرص) is a dam on the Blue Nile at Ad Damazin, just upstream of the town of Er Roseires, in Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمه� ...

, the main source of hydroelectric power in Sudan until the completion of the Merowe Dam in 2010.

Languages

The following languages are spoken in Blue Nile state according to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...

''.Languages of Sudan
''Ethnologue'', 22nd edition. *

Berta language Berta proper, a.k.a. ''Gebeto'', is spoken by the Berta (also ''Bertha, Barta, Burta'') in Sudan and Ethiopia. The three Berta languages, Gebeto, Fadashi and Undu, are often considered dialects of a single language. Berta proper includes th ...

Gumuz language Gumuz (also spelled Gumaz) is a dialect cluster spoken along the border of Ethiopia and Sudan. It has been tentatively classified within the Nilo-Saharan family. Most Ethiopian speakers live in Kamashi Zone and Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gu ...

Hausa language Hausa (; /; Ajami: ) is a Chadic language spoken by the Hausa people in the northern half of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern half of Niger, Chad and Sudan, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast. Hausa is a mem ...

*''

Eastern Jebel languages The Eastern Jebel languages are a small subfamily belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subgroup of Nilo-Saharan. They are spoken in the hills of An Nil al Azraq province in eastern Sudan (the name "Jebel" is simply Arabic for "mountain".) Language ...

'' ** Gaam language **

Aka language Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries. Aka is spoken by the Aka people, pygmies closely related to the Ubangian-sp ...

** Kelo language ** Molo language *'' Nilotic languages'' **

Burun language (Northern) Burun (Arabic: بورون (?)) is a Nilotic language The Nilotic languages are a group of related languages spoken across a wide area between South Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples. Etymology The word Nilotic means of o ...

** Jumjum language *''

Omotic languages The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ...

'' **

Ganza language Ganza, also known as Ganzo or Koma, is an Omotic language spoken in the Al Kurumik District of the Blue Nile (state) in Sudan and in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia, specifically in the village districts of Penishuba and Yabeld ...

*'' Koman languages'' **

Komo language Komo is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Kwama (Komo) people of Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan. It is a member of the Koman languages. The language is also referred to as Madiin, Koma, South Koma, Central Koma, Gokwom and Hayahaya. Many i ...

** Gule language **

Uduk language Uduk, also known as Twʼampa (Tʼwampa), is a Koman language spoken in Sudan near the border with Ethiopia. Nearly the entire population fled to a refugee camp in Ethiopia during the Second Sudanese Civil War The Second Sudanese Civil W ...

*''Other languages'' **

Fulfulde language Fula ,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh also known as Fulani or Fulah (, , ; Adlam: , , ), is a Senegambian language spoken by around 30 million people as a set of various dialects in a continuum that str ...

References

External links

History and geography

UN Work Plan for Blue Nile State
{{Authority control States of Sudan