Sudanese Greeks

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Sudanese Greeks

Έλληνες του Σουδάν
The ceremony hall of the Hellenic Community in Khartoum (2015)
Total population
150 + unknown number of descendants.
Regions with significant populations
Khartoum, Port Sudan, El Obeid
Languages
Greek · Sudanese Arabic · English
Religion
Greek Orthodox Church, Islam
Related ethnic groups
African Greeks · Egyptian Greeks · Ethiopian Greeks

The Sudanese Greeks, or Greeks in Sudan, are ethnic Greeks from modern-day Sudan; they are small in number (estimated at around 150 in 2015), but still a very prominent community in the country.^[1] Historically, this diverse group has played a significant role in the political, economic, cultural, and sporting life of Sudan,^[2] as they have been the only European immigrant community of considerable size and economic power.^[3]

Following cultural exchanges in ancient and medieval times, a few hundred Greeks – mostly military officers and traders – settled in the six decades after the 1820 Egyptian-Turkish conquest of what became modern Sudan. About one hundred of them stayed, either forcedly or deliberately, when the Ottoman occupiers were defeated by the local Mahdist forces in 1885. With the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1898, Greek merchants, administrators and artisans de facto became the stalwarts of the British-dominated colonial regime. By the time Sudan gained independence in 1956, their numbers had increased to around 6,000-7,000, but soon afterwards decreased, especially after the nationalisation of many businesses in 1969 and the introduction of Sharia law in 1983.

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".^[4] While the members of this community have been "proud for being Greeks 'more than the Greeks of Greece'",^[5] he concedes at the same time a hybrid identity, because they, "in the long run, have proven to be culturally and sentimentally surprisingly close to the Sudanese".^[4]