Kassala

Kassala, traditional region, east-central Sudan. It is bordered on the east by Eritrea. The Atbara River, an important tributary of the Nile, flows northwestward through Kassala and causes seasonal floods during torrential summer rains. Rocky deserts dominate the centre of the region, while in the north is the Butana Plain, with sandy clay soils and occasional low hills with short grass scrub and acacia. The south is underlain by Nubian sandstone and has thickets of acacia trees and tall grasses. Rainfall decreases steadily from south to north, with 40 inches (1,000 mm) falling annually in the extreme south but only 13 inches (330 mm) at Kassala town. The chief settlements in the region are Kassala and Gedaref.

About 590 bce the area came under control of the 25th, or Kushite, Egyptian dynasty. The Kushites were later conquered by the kingdom of Aksum (Axum), and the people were largely Christianized. There were Muslim raids into the region during the Mamlūk dynasty of Egypt (reigned 1250–1517). The people were converted to Islam in the early 16th century, when the area was ruled by the Arab Abdallabi dynasty. The subsequent Muslim Funj dynasty of Sennar used the region as a base for their wars with Ethiopia in 1618–19. In 1821 the area was conquered by Egypt under Muḥammad ʿAlī and became part of Egyptian Sudan. In 1881 al-Mahdī, a religious reformer and Sudanese political leader, successfully rebelled against Egypt, and the region was ruled by the Mahdists until their defeat in 1898 by Anglo-Egyptian forces. Kassala’s boundary with Ethiopia, its neighbour at the time, was in dispute until a treaty with Great Britain in 1902. The region was part of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium until Sudan’s independence in 1956.

Most of Kassala’s population is engaged in agricultural pursuits, and cereals, oilseeds, cotton, and peanuts (groundnuts) are produced there. Cattle and camels are raised in the northern and southern parts of Kassala. Industries in the region include cotton ginning and spinning mills, sugar refineries, oilseed mills, and soap factories. Minerals mined include iron ore, manganese, kaolin, asbestos, chromium, tungsten, vermiculite, and magnesite. Kassala town is linked by road and railway with Gedaref and Eriba. Arabs make up the large majority of the population, with the Bejas and the Nubians constituting ethnic minorities.