In August 1955, five months before independence, southern troops of the Equatoria Corps, together with police, mutinied in Torit and other towns. The mutinies were suppressed although some of the rebels were able to escape to rural areas. There they formed guerrilla bands but, being poorly armed and organized, presented no extensive threat to security. The later emergence of a secessionist movement in the south led to the formation of the Anya Nya guerrilla army, composed of remnants of the 1955 mutineers and recruits among southern students. Active at first only in Al Istiwai, Anya Nya carried its rebellion to all three southern provinces between 1963 and 1969. In 1971 a former army lieutenant, Joseph Lagu, united the ethnically fragmented guerrilla bands in support of a new political movement, the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM). The war ended in March 1972 with an agreement between Nimeiri and Lagu that conceded to the south a single regional government with defined powers.

Data as of June 1991