On May 25, 1969 Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry and a clandestine Free Officers Movement overthrew Sudan's elected civilian government in a bloodless dawn coup, ending the country's second democratic era and beginning sixteen years of Nimeiry's rule. The parliamentary system installed after the 1964 October Revolution had collapsed into paralysis, with rival traditionalist factions (the Umma Party split between Sadiq al-Mahdi and Prime Minister Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub) unable to govern or end the southern civil war. Nine officers led by Nimeiry, inspired by Nasser's Egypt and by contemporaneous coups in Libya and Iraq, struck early on May 25: by 4 a.
m. they had occupied key installations in the Khartoum area and arrested leading generals, and Radio Omdurman broadcast the new program. The coup deposed President Ismail al-Azhari and Prime Minister Mahgoub, suspended the constitution, dissolved political institutions, and established a Revolutionary Command Council chaired by Nimeiry that forged a tactical alliance with the Sudanese Communist Party.
Nimeiry pursued Arab-socialist nationalization and, in 1972, the Addis Ababa accord ending the first southern civil war, before turning to Islamism and being overthrown himself in 1985.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Ismail al-Azhari (and Prime Minister Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub), deposed in the bloodless May 25, 1969 coup; the leaders were arrested but not physically harmed in the takeover.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Ismail al-Azhari (president deposed)
Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub (prime minister deposed)
Gaafar Nimeiry (colonel and coup leader)
Babiker Awadalla (former chief justice made prime minister)
Sources
The government of President Ismail al-Azhari and Prime Minister Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub of Sudan was overthrown in a bloodless coup on 25 May 1969, ending Sudan's second democratic era; led by Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry, the coup faction established a military government pursuing Nasserist Arab nationalism and anti-imperialist state capitalism and forged a tactical alliance with the Sudanese Communist Party.
The military coup orchestrated by the Free Officers Movement and led by Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry began early on the morning of 25 May 1969, with key military and infrastructural installations in the Khartoum-Bahri-Omdurman area occupied by 4:00 am and leading Sudanese Army generals arrested, and at 7:00 am Radio Omdurman broadcast recorded speeches by Nimeiry and Babiker Awadalla setting out the new government's plans.
On 25 May 1969 Colonel Nimeiry, commanding the Khartoum Garrison, partnered with other Free Officers to overthrow the civilian government of Ismail al-Azhari in what was termed the May Revolution, timed opportunely as the 14 senior-most officers of the Sudanese Armed Forces were out of the country, beginning Nimeiry's rule from 1969 to 1985.
On May 25, 1969 several young officers calling themselves the Free Officers' Movement seized power, with nine officers at the core led by Colonel Nimeiry; the RCC suspended the Transitional Constitution, abolished government institutions, banned political parties, nationalized industries and banks, and Nimeiry ordered the arrest of sixty-three civilian politicians and the forced retirement of senior army officers.
SOURCE REVIEWEDGlobalSecurity.org, Sudan: Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry 1969-1985open source ↗
Editorial Note
Arc link: this connects to the earlier Sudan records in the dataset, the 17 November 1958 Abboud self-coup and the October 1964 events (enriched in earlier batches); the 1969 coup ends the second democratic era that the 1964 October Revolution had restored. Fate coding: the deposed president and prime minister were arrested but not physically harmed in the bloodless takeover, matching the dataset fate; the mass arrests of politicians are noted. Arc forward: Nimeiry survived a communist-backed coup attempt in July 1971, signed the 1972 Addis Ababa accord ending the first southern war, later imposed Sharia in 1983, and was himself overthrown in a 1985 coup, all separate later events.
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Ismail al-Azhari (and Prime Minister Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub), deposed in the bloodless May 25, 1969 coup; the leaders were arrested but not physically harmed in the takeover..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
“Officers in Sudan Oust Government,” by Raymond Anderson, May 26, 1969
“Sudan Coup Raises Question on Arab-Red Tie,” July 25, 1971
“Sudan Plans Fall election,” August 14, 1972
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →