evidence: Since independence, Sudan has struggled with multiple internal conflicts triggered by the political and economic marginalization of and sustained violence in its peripheral regions. The longest-lasting conflict was in Southern Sudan and the areas of Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei, where the government fought with the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement (SPLM) and other rebel groups. The United States played a key role in helping negotiate the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Sudan and the SPLM, which provided for South Sudan’s 2011 self-determination referendum and independence. In 2003, non-Arab communities in the western region of Darfur rebelled against the government. The government responded with brutal force, including the use of Arab militias. In 2004, the United States characterized the government and affiliated militia attacks on civilians as genocide, and the International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants for then-President al-Bashir for his role in the Darfur conflict. The United States had actively supported peace negotiations between the CLTG and armed opposition groups. The CLTG and a number of armed opposition groups signed the Juba Peace Agreement on October 3, 2020. The agreement seeks to integrate opposition groups into the government, incorporate armed militias into the security forces, provide for justice and reconciliation, and address resource and land allocation issues that lay at the heart of the conflicts in Darfur and the Two Areas (South [...] Bureau of African AffairsSudan