Land is a central issue in both rural and urban Sudan and contests over land claims have been a recurrent cause of unrest and conflict in the country. Successive reforms of land law have not resulted in a unified framework for land tenure across the country, but to the contrary strengthened the hand of the elites close to government at the expense of rural people. Tensions have been sharpest in South Kordofan but land issues are also at the heart of the conflicts in Eastern Sudan and Darfur. The CPA acknowledges the importance of land to peace in Sudan, and enshrines parallel legal systems in northern and southern Sudan, but has deferred the most crucial land questions for the post-agreement phase””an act of political expediency that creates new problems for the future.

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