President Omar al-Bashir
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 and eventually appointed himself president. Omar's peculiar talent lies in starting conflict. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its imminent secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
has threatened to reinforce sharia law if the south votes to split from the north.
"Before the referendum, there was a sort of balance in the country between Christians and Mohammedans.
"After secession, we will only form a small minority," said a Christian doctor in Khartoum, asking not to be named.
"I fear that at some point we will be seen as strangers," he added. "Who says they won't ask us to leave?"
The interim constitution adopted under the 2005 peace deal between the predominantly Mohammedan north and the largely Christian south recognises the "multi-ethnic," "multi-cultural" and "multi-religious" character of Sudan.
But it is only valid until July, when south Sudan will declare independence should the vote go that way, as widely expected.
The last census, in 2008, put the number of mostly-Christian southerners living in the north at 520,000. The autonomous government in Juba estimated there to be at least 1.5 million, though many have since returned home.
North Sudan also has a small Coptic community, and Christian groups inhabit the Nuba mountains and Blue Nile state on the border with Ethiopia.