Kurmuk: History
In January 1932, Egyptian and Ethiopian officials met at Kurmuk to resolve problems caused by Ethiopian slavers preying on villages in Sudan.
Due to the numerous ethnic groups living in and around Kurmuk, many of whom feel marginalized by the Islamic tendencies of the central government, the city has been a political hotspot since rebellion against the Islamic regime in 1983.
Due to lack of education in Kurmuk County particularly, the Minister/Advisory of the Governor Major General Steven Amath Dicko convened with his Kurmukians in November 2008 in an attempt to tax citizens as means to generate revenues to bring primary schools and secondary educations to every district of the Kwanim Pa. To alleviate this deficiency, United States Agency for International Development built the Granville-Abbas Girls' Secondary School in Kurmuk, which was opened on 8 March 2010. The school was named for an American diplomat and his Sudanese colleague who were both assassinated in Khartoum on 1 January 2008.
The RSF and SPLM-N (al-Hilu) took over the town amid the Blue Nile campaign on 24 March 2026, near the Ethiopian border in Blue Nile State. The offensive displaced over 73,000 people. The Sudanese Armed Forces launched an offensive on 3 July 2026 to retake the city.