page_title: Greeks in Sudan
section_title: Sudan Independence (since 1956)
hierarchical_section_title: Greeks in Sudan / History / Modern times / Sudan Independence (since 1956)
caption_attribution_description: English: Grave of Fotini Simos Poulou / ΦΩΤΕΙΝΗ ΣΙΜΟΣ ΠΟΥΛΟΥ (1923-2006) in Khartoum, Sudan
context_page_description: The Greek diaspora in Sudan is small in the number of its members, but still a very prominent community in the country. Historically, the diverse group has played a significant role in the political, economic, cultural, and sporting life of Sudan as the only European settler community of considerable size and economic power.
  The Greek anthropologist Gerasimos Makris, who is related to the Greeks of Sudan through marriage, stresses that "neutrality and a 'clean hands' ideology has always been central to the Greek settlers' self-image, though it is difficult to be reconciled with political developments". While "Greeks in Sudan have been proud for being themselves Greeks ‘more than the Greeks of Greece'", he concedes at the same time a hybrid identity, because they, "in the long run, have proved to be culturally and sentimentally surprisingly close to the Sudanese".
context_section_description: When Sudan obtained sovereignty from the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium on 1 January 1956, the Greek settlers in the country were issued Sudanese nationality certificates and generally continued to thrive in the first few years of independence. According to Chaldeos, the community reached its greatest number in 1957 at around 6,000. Makris puts the estimate at 7,000 in the 1950s Tsakos concludes that during the first one and a half decades after independence
  "the Greeks were the main (foreign) agents supporting the transition of the Sudanese society from 'former' to 'new' times. They occupied many posts in the public sector, they controlled production centres as important as the Gezira Cotton Scheme, and they influenced substantial parts of the urban economy and its everyday activities."  
  Immediately  after  Independence, the Sudanese government commissioned the Greek architect and town planner Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis, who also designed Islamabad, to set up the 1958 master plan for developing urban Khartoum. It espoused the concept of the Dyna-metropolis according to Doxiadis' philosophy of  Ekistics and advocated unidirectional growth southwards. While the plan was never systematically implemented, Doxiades has been credited as the father of the new extension of Amarat.
  Another Greek architect, the Khartoum-based George Stefanides, designed many villas in Amarat. For this, he "used a mixed vocabulary of tropical architecture together with features of his own Mediterranean culture such as balconies, window shutters and sun-breakers and white-washed facades." Stefanides also designed a lasting landmark symbol of the Greek influence on shaping the immediate post-independence era: the Aboulela Commercial Building, which was opened in 1956 just opposite the Republican Palace and "exhibits the characteristics that came to define modern architecture in Sudan".
  However, following those "golden years", Chaldeos' figures show that the number of Greeks in Sudan diminished by 1965 to 4,000. One reason for this exodus was apparently the escalation of the Anyanya-rebellion in Southern Sudan and the brutal counter-insurgency of successive governments in Khartoum. Still in 1960, the community in the South had given refuge to Greeks, who fled the turmoil in neighbouring Congo. 
  Yet, a few years later they themselves came under pressure: after an Anyanya assault on Wau in early 1964, the military regime of Ibrahim Abboud reportedly "announced that foreign traders would only be allowed to reside in provincial or district capitals in the South, where they could be kept under surveillance, and not in villages. This restriction was aimed at Syrian and Greek traders, who were suspected of helping the rebels."
  Shortly afterwards, four Greek merchants were taken to court for charges of having collected donations for the insurgents, but got acquitted. At the end of 1964 two Greek traders in Bahr Al-Ghazal and Equatoria respectively were arrested on charges of acting as a link between rebels and the outside world. In fact, an internal Anyanya paper claimed that "Greek merchants of Tembura helped by providing supplies" to a rebel camp in the Central African Republic.
  When Southern and Northern Sudanese clashed in the streets of Khartoum on the "Black Sunday" of 6 December 1964, one Greek was amongst those who got killed by the mob, though it is unclear whether he had been targeted for any political reasons.
  In 1967, two grandsons of Dimitri Yaloris, a Greek formerly based in Gogrial, and his Dinka wife, were killed in Bahr El Ghazal after being accused of supporting the Anyanya rebels. According to Chaledos, they were targeted by the army in a special operation, since they had indeed supplied arms to the insurgents through their enterprise.
  Moreover, the Greeks of Southern Sudan, many of whom had married locals, came under pressure from both warring sides: while the accusations from Khartoum continued, Southern opposition forces accused Greek monopolists of keeping the prices of animals "as low as possible to their own advantage" for export t
caption: Grave of Photini Poulou-Maistrelli
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