Bahr al-Arab

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BAHR AL-ARAB

River separating southern Sudan from Darfur and Kordofan.

Bahr al-Arab is more important as the frontier between the Africans of Southern Sudan and the Arab Muslims of Darfur and Kordofan than as a hydro-logical entity. Rising on the watershed between Sudan and the Central African Republic, it flows sluggishly east in a great arc to its confluence with the Bahr al-Ghazal at Gabat al-Arab, by which point it has lost most of its water through evaporation. Its lower reaches are choked with aquatic vegetation.

see also bahr al-ghazal; kordofan; sudan.

Robert O. Collins