Beja people
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Languages | |
| Beja · Sudanese Arabic · Tigre | |
| Religion | |
| Islam (Sunni) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Ababda · Afar · Agaw · Amhara · Oromo · Saho · Somali · Tigray · Tigre and other Cushitic peoples. |
The Beja people (Arabic: البجا) are an ethnic group inhabiting Sudan, as well as parts of Eritrea, Egypt, and the Eastern Desert. They total around 1,237,000 individuals. The Beja speak the Beja language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family.
The Beja are traditionally Cushitic-speaking pastoral nomads native to the territory in the Hala'ib Triangle, the extreme northeast of the Sudan. During the first century AD, a Beja dynasty captured Meroë and ruled the Kingdom of Kush. They were partially Christianized in the 6th century, and the southern Beja were part of the Kingdom of Aksum in the early medieval period. The Beja were Islamized beginning in the 15th century. The now-Islamic Beja participated in the further Muslim conquest of Sudan, expanding southward. The Hadendoa Beja by the 18th century dominated much of eastern Sudan. In the Mahdist War of the 1880s to 1890s, the Beja fought on both sides, the Hadendoa siding with the rebels while the Bisharin and Amarar tribes sided with the British.
The Beja Congress was formed in 1952 with the aim of pursuing regional autonomy against the government in Khartoum. Frustrated by the lack of progress, the Beja Congress joined the insurgent National Democratic Alliance in the 1990s. The Beja Congress effectively controlled a part of eastern Sudan centered on Garoura and Hamshkoraib. The Beja Congress sabotaged the oil pipeline to Port Sudan several times during 1999 and 2000. In 2003, they rejected the peace deal arranged between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and allied with the rebel movement of the Darfur region, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, in January 2004. A peace agreement was signed with the government of Sudan in October 2006. In the general elections in April 2010, the Beja Congress did not win a single seat in the National Assembly in Khartoum. In anger over alleged election fraud and the slow implementation of the peace agreement, the Beja Congress in October 2011 withdrew from the agreement, and later announced an alliance with the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.
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